The Empty Quarter
by Taliahah
Summary: OOC/AU. Annie, concerned for Eyal after she learns that even Mossad may not know his whereabouts, begins making inquiries on her own which Joan takes advantage of for an unrelated mission. Is it love and kismet that still conspire to bring the two together - or a very cruel twist of fate? Not like my other, brighter stories and not for everybody. Disturbing themes.
1. Absence Makes the Heart Go Wander

_**Author's Note: This is an Out of Canon story sliding into AU as the show evolves off on its arc. This follows after other stories I've done, especially Mermaid Beach,**__**and it will also reference A Long Weekend in Santa Margarita, and to a much lesser degree, We'll Always Have Paperclips. It's not necessary to have read those but it may make more sense if you have. For my readers of those stories, this one goes down quite a different and much darker path, just so you know.**_

It had been long enough that Annie didn't feel her heartbeat accelerate as she passed a conversation in progress with Joan and several others and heard the word "Mossad". It had been eleven months since she had departed from Israel after that uneasy farewell, their first since becoming lovers at last, and there had not been a single contact with Eyal since then. His D.C. area apartment was apparently abandoned, cell phone number dead. She couldn't quite bring herself to ask Auggie to do a little search on her behalf, because she knew on some level it would hurt him, but it was tempting.

"Oh Annie, come here for a moment, I need to talk to you."

"What's up?" Annie asked. Joan excused herself from the small gathering.

"Let's go into my office." That was never her favorite spot.

"We're having a visitor from Israel today," Joan continued, shutting the door, and now Annie's heart did speed up. Joan was watching her face carefully. "No, it's not Eyal Lavin. Rivka is stopping by. You know how much I enjoy her visits. This time, she seems to think that you may have some special information on Eyal's whereabouts, which, surprisingly, seem to be a mystery to Mossad."

"I haven't heard from him since I left Israel."

"Not at all?"

"No, Joan." Joan nodded slightly, as if satisfied she was telling the truth.

"Well, tell her that. But don't be too forthcoming. I'm going to sit in on this one."

Rivka's sharp eyes bored into Annie from across the table in the small conference room. "No phone calls, nothing?"

"Absolutely nothing." Rivka looked over at Joan, as if hoping for assistance, or pretending to hope for assistance. The hardy Israeli intelligence officer did not seek much help in general.

"I must say, Miss Walker, that is a little surprising to me. All reports indicate that the two of you had a – special relationship. Especially during your time in Israel... just before he disappeared."

"He was very kind to me while I was recovering, yes. Thank you for asking him to look in on me."

"Is that what he told you?"

"Yes."

"And you believed him?"

"I didn't think about it much. I was glad to get out of the hospital."

"He took you out swimming, out to dine, other _activities_, bought you gifts…"

"No."

"No? That is surprising. You see, Annie, the nurses and doctors in Israel are very highly trained. They have very good memories and keep excellent records."

"He did take me out of the facility. He brought me some clothes, but he did not buy me any gifts, unless you're counting a box of pfeffernusse."

"Which you have all eaten long ago, correct?"

"I did not keep the pfeffernusse as a souvenir, no. Do you need me to swallow radium and submit to a stomach scan for any remaining cookie fragments?"

"That is very kind of you to offer, but no, Annie, we do not need to look inside you for any internal fragments of _cookies_ that Eyal may have left you with. But there were other things that he brought to you. The desk nurse noted it."

"He returned to me a bag I left in his car with some souvenirs I bought on one of our days out together."

"And where are these things now?"

Annie reached into her skirt pocket, where her car keys were. She tossed them onto the table, attached to the Lamborghini emblem keychain. "There's one of them."

"What else? Do you still have everything?"

"The magnet is on my refrigerator. The guidebook and map of Israel are in my bookcase. The postcards are around somewhere."

"And the other book, Miss Walker? A book of poetry, I think?"

"Lost when my luggage was stolen in Krakow." Annie answered, without hesitation.

"Oh really? I do not know how you handle it here in the States, but we in Mossad, if an operative has items stolen, there is always a report, a list. Is that what you do here, Joan?"

Annie looked at Joan pleasantly.

"Yes, we do. It helps if our operative's DNA shows up in an odd location later on, if we've accounted for any misplaced items, as you know."

"Could I see this list?"

"You don't believe that my operative is being truthful?"

"I would just like to see this list. As a courtesy. As a kindness. You see, we are all very worried about Eyal Lavin."  
Joan glanced again at Annie, saw no pleading or worry in her eyes, and tapped a few keys on her laptop. "Here you go. "Report on Lost or Stolen Items, Annie Walker, Krakow." She turned the screen so that Rivka could see the form.

"Here is a list to the best of my recollection of the items in my luggage which was stolen from my room in Krakow:

_Makeup bag and contents including Great Lash mascara, 2 Smashbox lipsticks, Sephora foundation, generic powder compact, Jo Malone Grapefruit travel sprayer_

_Backup cell phone charger_

_Book Mystical Poets of the Middle East_

_Christian Louboutin shoes, brand new, high heels,_

_Mauve cashmere sweater_

_Grey wool pencil skirt …_" There were many more entries, but Rivka was not interested in scrolling down.

"And why did you have that book with you on this particular trip, Miss Walker?

"I needed something to read on the plane."

"Really? You don't prefer something more … contemporary?

"I was running late the morning I left and it was on my bedside table, so I grabbed it."

"That is where you usually keep it? By your bed?"

"I like something calming to read to help me go to sleep, and mystical poetry I don't understand does the job."

"And where did you buy this book, Miss Walker? When and where _exactly_ in your travels with Mr. Lavin did you find yourself at a used bookstall?" Annie looked her in the eye.

"There was a synagogue rummage sale. We stopped on impulse."

Joan broke in as the two women squared off on opposite sides of the table. "I think Annie has been quite cooperative on this, Rivka. Of course we would love to assist you in finding the AWOL Eyal, but we've had no contact. As for this book, as our records show, Annie lost it almost three months ago in Krakow. I suggest you look for it there if it is of such interest to you. It may even be the reason her luggage was stolen, since it is obviously of interest to you and may have been to others as well."

"I thank you for that helpful analysis. One more thing, Miss Walker, the objects you do have, would you mind if I take a look at them?"

"The souvenirs I bought for myself? The clothes?"

"All of which Eyal had in his control for some hours. Yes. If there is no objection, Joan." Annie looked to her boss, again, with as pleasant and neutral an expression as she could manage.

"I have no objection if Annie doesn't. Annie will bring them in tomorrow."

"That's fine with me."  
"Till tomorrow, then. I'll walk you out, Rivka."

Annie stayed in Joan's office. Joan dispatched her guest as quickly as was polite and returned, texting on her cell phone. "What do you think she is really looking for?"

"Joan, I have no idea. So Eyal's actually missing?"

"All we know is that he's supposedly off of her radar, and definitely off of ours. What that actually means is anybody's guess, though I agree with Rivka that it is odd if he hasn't contacted you."

Annie sighed.

"He really hasn't, has he?"

"No, Joan, there has been nothing."

"I just dispatched a team to your house to retrieve the objects you mentioned, by the way."

"Why did you do that? I was going to bring them in."

"If Rivka wants them so badly, we need to take a look at them ourselves, and knowing her, we may already be too late. But what I really need from you, Annie, is that book of poetry."

"Joan, that was in my luggage…"

"Annie, we've had to extract you by air, land, and sea from about twenty cities so far, usually without your luggage. I can't believe that you had anything potentially that precious to you there. After so long without word from Eyal, I have a strong feeling that you thought it might be wise to "lose" it permanently in case just this type of situation arose and your stolen luggage gave you the perfect opportunity to put it out of the stream permanently and keep it safe for yourself, unless of course you are actively colluding with a missing Mossad agent on some other matter, which is another situation entirely. Or perhaps you "stole" your own luggage."

"If I had, I definitely would not have included those brand new _shoes_."

Joan smiled. "You know, Annie, on that part I believe you. But bring me that book."

Joan put on conservator's cotton gloves similar to what Annie had often worn at the Smithsonian and flipped through the pages as Annie watched. "Bookmark is where he placed it?"

"Yes."

"You really are worried about him, aren't you?"

"How can you tell?"

"You wouldn't have brought this to me otherwise. I know that. Nice poem. I'm going to hand this over to our guys for a few hours, they'll photograph it, check it for microdots, X-ray it - you know the drill. You can have it back after that if they don't find anything. I doubt that they will."

"Then why do you think Rivka wants it?"

"I imagine she believes it is a key to a book code, simple but hard to break if you don't know the book being used."

Annie's shoulders slumped. So that _was_ it. The lovely little gift, the lovely days, the beautiful sunset evening – all, as even the poem implied, pure spycraft. She had been a fool over him. She felt the only comfort that had sustained her for the last months, that he cared about her, that he must be kept away by some impossible-to-overcome circumstance, wrenched away. She was a convenient dead drop like an unused post box. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Annie, you're on the verge of tears. For you, that's not nothing."

"I am not on the verge of tears." Which was technically true, since one had just slid down her cheek, fortunately on the side turned away from Joan. Joan did a final, careful flip-through of the book and set it down on her desk, hit her intercom, and called for one of the object analysis team to come to her office. Annie wiped the tear under the guise of adjusting her hair, tried not to sniffle and turned around to face Joan as if nothing were wrong.

"I've seen the way he looks at you, Annie," Joan said, quietly. "The way he moves to keep you in view, to keep aligned with you as you go through a room. Even he doesn't know he's doing it. When he was here with Rivka, and when we were all in one place cleaning up that little mess over the Cardinal. He cares about his country, and his craft, but my "helpful analysis", as Rivka would put it, is that he also cares about you. Very much. I'm not speaking as your boss here, Annie. I would much prefer that none of my operatives become overly involved with any other agency's spy, particularly one as volatile and unpredictable as Eyal Lavin. He may have entrusted you with something as an insurance policy, and you may be one of the few people on earth he thinks he can absolutely trust. And on some level, you know all that or you would not be treating this book as an intelligence artifact instead of treating it as a gift from a boyfriend."

Annie swallowed, wincing at the memory of their last embraces. Was that all fake? Spycraft? She knew Joan was trying to make her feel better, but the only thing to soothe her would be to hear from his own sensual full lips that this was - or at least had been - real between them, that she had not finally surrendered to him only to be abandoned so quickly after. "Whatever he is, Joan," she said, finally, "I don't think "boyfriend" would be the word."

"Perhaps not." There was a knock on the door and the tech entered, a plastic evidence bag held out in front of him. Joan picked up the book with her gloved hands and dropped it into the baggie and the tech carried it away for analysis.

Maybe more analysis was the key - Annie had some R&R comp time due. Though unlikely, maybe Rivka had missed something. Or maybe showing up in Israel just might shake loose the elusive Eyal Lavin.

_**Author's Note: Reviews are so welcomed! **_


	2. In Search of Distraction

So far, so good, Annie noted with some satisfaction. She had cleared Israeli customs and had not been pulled aside for a little private chat. It was possible that they were letting her through for reasons of their own; it was hard for her to accept Mossad might have missed her. She winced as she went out on the sidewalk, remembering the first time she had been to Israel, when Eyal had met her unexpectedly with the sign saying "Neshema". She had only scattered memories of her second arrival, in shock, after the explosion on the extraction ship.

She spent a few hours setting herself up, establishing that she apparently was not being followed or surveilled, and then she went on to her true destination. She wasn't very hopeful; she just had to see for herself.

Her first stop was at the apartment building where his parents lived. She pulled up, looking around for the young boys who had been around before, who'd known Eyal. The street seemed childless now, and the area looked a bit grimier to her, perhaps a real change or maybe just being with him in the Lamborghini had brightened the picture for her. She went upstairs and knocked on the door, which looked unused. The door was easy to unlock and she stepped inside. It was an empty apartment now, not a stick of furniture, nothing, and it had clearly been left empty for some time. There was no lingering odor of cooking and if she looked closely, she thought the area had been repainted at least once since the day she had met Eyal's parents there. She looked around, opened some kitchen drawers, checked the bathroom cabinets but there was nothing. It was as if it had never been inhabited at all, never mind by such a strong personality as Mrs. Safira Lavin. Annie knocked on the neighbor's doors - those who answered had no forwarding addresses, no information on where they had moved. "They didn't live here for very long," one woman told her. "So I didn't have a chance to get to know them very well." That's odd, Annie thought; Eyal hadn't mentioned they'd just moved in or were just about to move out. She got an address and number for the owner of the building, but that led to a voicemail; the address was a mailbox.

Her next stop was, she thought, more potentially dangerous - Eyal's apartment, where they had watched the setting sun before they had foudn bliss in each others' arms at last. At that time, she'd wondered if it was an official Mossad apartment block of some kind - possibly, but Eyal wouldn't choose to knowingly live under that watchful an eye. She rang the buzzer for entrance; the attendant let her in.  
"I'm here to see Eyal Lavin? 508?"  
"Sorry. That's the Goodmans apartment. There's no Lavin, Eyal or otherwise."  
"Do you know when he moved out?"  
"No, but they moved in about six months ago. Before my time."  
"Thank you."  
"But I think that was the apartment that was abandoned - guy stopped paying, bank took it back."  
Annie swallowed as the doorman carried on. "Boss wondered what they'd find when they finally busted in there!You know, dead body or something. But just stuff, books, things like that."  
"I see. Thank you for telling me."  
"You in Israel for long? Wanta get a drink?"  
She evaluated the offer. This guy could tell her nothing useful, if he was truly what he seemed to be - a slightly dim desk jockey, or someone primed with a story ready to go. "Sorry, got someplace I have to be."

Her hotel room had a beautiful view, and she watched the new version of the sunset and had something close to a Sazerac - he might have discovered them in Tel Aviv while he was a medical student but she'd dearly like to know where, as the hotel bar had no clue.  
Well, it was a long shot, she thought as she looked out over the lights. She'd known that when she'd squeezed this trip in, and though the fake ids had cost her a pretty penny, since they weren't on the CIA account, something inside of her was at least satisfied that she had made this attempt. The idea that she could pick up on anything that Rivka and all of Mossad had apparently missed was unlikely; she couldn't even define what she was looking for. On some level, it was pilgrimage or even a kind of prayer, acting out a superstitious belief that if she did everything possible, he might magically reappear as her reward.  
But why were his parents gone? She could try tracking them and at least pay her respects; if he were truly AWOL, then they must be heartbroken, that following on the tragedy of his sister's death. Though she couldn't expect anything like a welcome from his mother - who might even blame his "colleague" for this - it would be the kind thing to do. She had another day in Israel. She assembled her plan - unless she wanted to drop by King Saul Boulevard and say "Hi" to Rivka, if she couldn't find a new address for his parents, what she could accomplish quickly here was probably over.  
In the morning she worked what info she had, called in a quiet favor from Barber back home, and still came up empty. Defeated, she drove up to the restaurant where Eyal had taken her on her lunch date out with him, and ordered what they'd had that day. It was a mistake - sentimental foolishness, and it only made her sad and missing him all the more. Being here, where he had seemed so lively and at home, only underlined his absence, and for the first time, she really began to wonder if he was dead. That would explain, if they knew , why his parents would up and move, hoping a change of scene would ease their grief, and it would also explain the abandonment of his apartment.

She felt herself drifting beyond sadness, into an unfamiliar depression - or maybe that was partly because of her state of mind when she had been last in Israel, paralyzed into inactivity, the place somehow calling forth that emotional state. Fortunately, at that instant, her cell phone rang. Joan.  
"Hi Annie, enjoying Israel?"  
"How did you know?"  
"Little message from Rivka. Good job, by the way, it seems it took them about 24 hours after your arrival to make you. Not bad at all. Am I right in assuming you were looking for clues on the whereabouts of a certain agent we know?"  
Annie sighed. "Yes."  
"Any luck?"  
"His apartment was sold as an abandoned property. Where I met his parents is empty. I've done basic follow ups. Nothing."  
"I'm sorry to hear of that. But I'm glad you are where you are. I need you to step into a mission along the border of Jordan. Feel up to some hiking?"  
"That cover hasn't worked out so well lately if you recall." A trio of "hikers" had been picked up as spies, supposedly after they had blundered into Iran.  
"Exactly. No one will anticipate us using anything similar for some time to come. Are you game?"  
Israel was not raising her spirits. Maybe a mission in the region would at least distract her, and in the meantime, she might come up with more ideas on tracking Eyal.

Well, this was certainly distracting, Annie thought, as her arms ached from being shackled high above her head. Even worse, her partner had been caught with a small transmitter and other equipment on him. She was clean of that at least and her only chance was to play the Dumb Girlfriend to the hilt. And hope that was enough. The men who had captured them, insisting, in an exact repeat of a previous incident, that they had wandered over the border into Iranian territory, were an oddly mixed group and that meant increased danger - some appeared to be Middle European mercenaries, while the rest were apparently Iranian regulars with intelligence officers mixed in. She couldn't play "the group" as well with so many different types of players, the wild underlying energy was erratic, there was far more alcohol around than was typical for an Islamist border camp, and there seemed to be dissension about who was in charge - which at least could possibly work to her advantage.

But there was not much room for mindgames or playing her captors off of each other. Their approach to interrogation was brutal. She didn't see her partner after the initial capture - though she thought sounds in the night from "enhanced interrogation techniques" belonged to him. She didn't even know if he was in the same facility.

Only their entertainment value seemed to be of any worth; they'd given up bothering to question her.

There were mental techniques to get through this. Annie had been taught them at the Farm, and she had paid attention. She hoped they would be enough.

But Russia had been easier.

Even more annoyingly, she could just imagine what Eyal would have to say to her for getting herself into this predictament at least partially because she had been in the area looking for him. No good comments would be forthcoming from him on the quality of her spycraft, or her own intelligence in going on this wild goose chase, accepting the assignment against her better judgement, or any number of other topics. And worse, if she actually died in this captivity, and he ever heard about it and connected it to her looking for him, she'd be dropping on him a truckload of guilt and pain to remember her by.

Oh Eyal, I'm so sorry, she thought. But she took some solace in her mental conversations with him, with visualizing his handsome face near to hers and the soothing tones of his voice, even if in her fantasy he just told her what a damn fool she had been. Then the door opened and the least-reasonable of her jailers entered.

Again.


	3. Rescue and Retribution

The image the sheik was showing him was bad black and white surveillance camera footage, low contrast. It showed most of the metal cot in the corner of the room. When the door was opened and he could see the silhouette of the jailer fill the lit space, the little figure on the bed scrambled back against the wall. It was the kind of movement born of terror and past pain and fear; he had no doubt of what the previous interactions between the two figures had been. Though there was no audio with the picture, the figure – he looked Slavic, mercenary probably - in the doorway seemed to be laughing at her distress.

"So, Faisal, what do you think? Do you recognize her? Do you know why, on two occasions at least, she should wake up in the night screaming out your old name?"

The man on the video stepped forward into the room. The figure on the bed went from cowering against the wall to a pathetic attempt to get by him and through the door. But she was not quick and her movements were strangely uncoordinated; the oaf stopped her easily and pushed her backwards across the room. There was no doubt, now. Suddenly, as if by divine revelation, he knew exactly what he must do and say if he were to save her.

"She is my wife," he said clearly. "I ask of you, bring her to me – and have that one come as well," he said, pointing.

"I did not know you that you were married before now."

"It was long past. We parted in anger but never legally. It, like much of my life before, is not a time I am proud of. She had much to complain of. From the way I was raised, I did not know better."

"And just how did she know where to start looking for you?"

The question was sharp. "In a moment – in a moment of weakness , I called her. When I knew I was leaving everything behind. To say goodbye for good."

"To divorce her? To tell her that?"

"That was my intention, yes."

"But you did not say those words?"

"No."

The sheik replayed the video. "If she is a problem for you, I understand it may soon solve itself. She has a head injury. If left untreated … or there would be other ways to make this problem … just go away." He made a gesture with his hand.

"Thank you. I appreciate your offer of help. But she has come in search of me, the man I once was. Who abandoned her. " He tore his eyes away from the screen. Watching was useless - it was taped, not live; whatever had happened to Annie at that moment was long over. But that was no comfort. "Inshallah, the man I am now will make up for that."

II.

This time, when the guard came for Annie, there were two others with him. It was hard for her eyes to focus, and the nausea overtook her again. They watched her throw up, disgusted, and for the moment, she was safe from any assault. But that wasn't why they were there. She was roughly pulled off the bed and made to stand, but she promptly dropped to her knees, the room spinning. One of them finally picked her up, threw her over his shoulder so she would vomit behind him if need be, and carried her from the room. She could hear the whup-whup of a helicopter that apparently didn't have time to shut off its rotors; she found herself briefly wishing they would just walk her into tail rotor and let it all be over and done with. That she was near-suicidal terrified her and for a moment, her mind cleared and she tried to see if there was any chance for escape as they transferred her. But no, she was dumped into the body of the helicopter, her chief tormentor clambered in, and the craft lifted up.

She had been drifting in and out of consciousness while lying on the floor of the helicopter - the man with her had smashed her against the wall of her cell a couple of days ago, and a hook jutting from it had jabbed into her skull, leaving a festering wound and leaving her increasingly disoriented. That would likely kill her before too long, hopefully before she said anything useful. Her guard was seated on a metal bench and had earphones on – lucky him. For a second she was completely alert. He couldn't hear - If she could tie his shoelaces together without him noticing, then do something to get him to leap up quickly, she might be able to use the earphone wires as a garotte. But she couldn't move well enough or fast enough to implement that plan.

Where were they taking her? The facility she had been held at seemed to be as secure and dark a hole as they could wish. Could she be being exchanged? Probably not – they would have cleaned her up for an exchange or a news conference. Her clothes were caked with blood, dirt, and more. Her hair around the head wound was stiff and if she could see it, she knew it would be brown with blood. Her mouth was so dry and her lips were cracking. She had not been given water before they left. Her guard noticed her looking at him, which she instantly regretted. He was the one … she stopped herself from thinking. Let it all go numb. "Water?" she managed. Maybe he would get close enough to her at a moment when she felt briefly strong that she could do something to him. The operating mechanism for the door perhaps? Could she somehow dump him out of the helicopter, preferably from 10,000 feet up? "Thirsty? Thirsty little blondie? I get you something to drink!" She closed her eyes and heard the sound of his zipper. But then, blessedly, the helicopter began to descend. He looked disgusted and disappointed but she heard the reverse sound as the chopper landed.

The doors slid open. Everything looked watery to her, mirage like; blazing sun, sand, tribal tents, a jeep, beyond that, a garishly decorated camel. Her guard dragged her up and to the opening . He made a halfhearted effort to keep her upright, but she still fell forward onto the scalding hot earth. People – they were women, two completely veiled women – came forward and assisted her, bringing her a garment to cover her – she was still in her hiking clothes, bare arms, bare legs – and they were moving her away from the chopper, which again was not pausing for long. Her guard was talking loudly with someone as she was moved toward the largest of the tents. She heard a strange noise and turned to look behind her, despite the efforts of the women to keep her moving away. Her guard had been bound and was being roughly attached to a ring at the top of a thick wooden pole. A red spray covered her and she realized her tormentor had been cleaved from shoulder to hip by a Bedouin with a sword and another flick of the blade unmanned him. As she watched, a second stroke made an "X" and the screaming stopped.

The women pulled her forward, the older one talking to her in a dialect she did not know, but the tone seemed to be encouraging, comforting, as if she might be upset by the carnage she had just witnessed. If only they knew. It only filled her with hope. They swiftly guided her into the tent, which was large, slightly cooler, and covered with rugs on the floor and embroidered hangings along the walls. It was empty, but she saw that there were things prepared for her arrival – a couple of large copper vessels, filled with steaming warm water, and a metal tub shaped like a small sleigh. One of the women – who seemed to be the older one, perhaps forty but women aged fast in the desert - found the wound on her head and exclaimed over it before abruptly leaving her alone with the younger woman, who looked at her curiously and reached out a hand to touch her hair where it wasn't blooded.

In a moment the other woman returned, joined by the Bedouin who had just sliced apart her tormentor with the slightly curved sword that was hanging, replaced in its scabbard, from his belt. She noticed that an automatic weapon balanced it on the other side. His bared hands were red with sprayed blood; other than his eyes, she could not see his face as he was veiled in the style of the Tuaregs, but she had been nowhere near Tuareg country and they didn't veil their women, only their men. Perhaps it was just a convenience to avoid the blood spatter when slicing open enemies, or disguising themselves for some other purpose. Her guard was his enemy, or at least someone he wanted to kill; that must be in her favor even if it had not been his punishment for treating her badly. What was the phrase? The friend of my enemy is … no, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. That was it. Annie was having a hard time holding onto consciousness; the woman, or maybe it was the man, anyway, someone was examining her head wound, and it was increasing her pain. And she needed water. And she was hallucinating, because there was no way she could have heard, just as she slipped into unconsciousness again, the "Oh neshema" spoken so softly into her ear.

She woke slowly, finding herself alone in the tent. There was an incongruously modern drip rig near her leading to a needle in her hand. She sat up gingerly. How had she gotten here? She closed off the drip line and disconnected herself, slowly getting to her feet. She felt slightly drugged, but nothing too harsh. She had been in a prison somewhere… but that seemed dreamlike now. Had it been real? The multiple carpets making up the floor of the tent were a little uneven and she had to move carefully, but she gradually made her way to the where she could see edges of light around an entrance to the tent, and gripped the side of the opening, looking out. A man whirled around, as if sensing her emergence, and shouted at her, instantly angry; she took a step backwards and tripped, falling back onto the rugs, which were at least soft. She could still see through the tent flap, and saw that the man's shouting had drawn out a veiled woman from someplace else. He was shouting so loudly and angrily she was worried he was going to hit the woman, who was placatory, murmuring and crouching away from him even as she hastened to the tent. She entered and shut the flap more fully. She unveiled herself and dropped to her knees by Annie and spoke to her rapidly, in a dialect Annie could not follow, but it seemed she was repeating an apology as she assisted Annie back to where the drip rig was and made it clear she was reconnecting it. She must have added something else to it, because Annie felt herself drift off again almost immediately.

At some point, Annie turned over on the makeshift bed that seemed to be made of extra carpets and pillows, knocking into the same drip rig and startling a nearby white-robed figure, who responded quickly enough to keep it from falling over. The blur of motion was confusing, more so when the man dropped to his knees beside her .

"Eyal!"

"That is not my name any longer," he said to her, firmly.

She closed her eyes, confused. "What?" He gripped her arm, firmly enough that it hurt.

"That name is no part of me now. Annie, listen up. This is the last time I will speak English with you, do you understand? You've had a nasty blow to your head and I don't know if your language skills are up to the task of understanding what I have to say to you in another language. So listen. Then from this moment, Arabic is our language. Do you understand? "

"Ok." This had to be a very odd dream, but dream or reality, it would be polite to listen. And it was Eyal, and even in a nightmare, that would have to work out to be okay, she was sure.

"I don't know why you followed me," he was saying to her, and even though she knew she was clearly confused, she also knew that wasn't right. "I would have thought you were as happy to let our marriage end as I was, but as that is clearly not the case, I will do my duty by you now, and I will adhere to every obligation the Koran imposes on my treatment of my wife. You have been brought to me by the will of Allah so that I may make things up to you. You will have no cause for complaint."

"Eyal, I don't understand…" She felt his nails dig into her arm, intentionally. He could not be trying to really hurt her, could he? When she was lying in front of him with a head wound?

Apparently, yes.

"That is not my name anymore. That is the name pressed on me by my so-called parents, when they stole the child of a young Palestinian woman and her Saudi husband. For all I know they found her alive and killed her as well as stealing her child. The people I believed to be my parents, they are no kin of mine. You remember them – did you note any family resemblance? Did I look like the fruit of that tiny man's loins?" Did he look like fruit? Fruit of the loins – wasn't that an underwear brand? No, Fruit of the Loom. Annie forced herself to focus and follow what he was saying. She looked at his intense, angry eyes. She had never seen Eyal look at her that way before, so dark, so cold.

"No," she said, remembering that tense hour she had spent in the company of his parents when she was in Israel. He seemed satisfied with her answer. His fingernails withdrew from her flesh, though he still held her arm firmly.

"Now I am here with my real people, training and fighting with them, mastering my real culture and making up for lost time, at the orders of my uncle. My true father is long dead at the hands of the Israelis. And now you have come back to me by a miracle, truly a miracle - if you had not, you would be dead by now from the wound in your head which I treated. When they found you after you illegally crossed the border, they thought you were a spy if you can imagine. You are lucky you have been spared. This is our life now. You will do what you must. You will adjust."

That was clearly an order. "We will speak no more of this. From this day forward, our corrupted past is dead and we will live in a new and purer way. Do you understand? Do you understand, my wife?" The fingernails were back pressing into her arm. She managed to startle him by ripping her arm from his grasp. Her strength was coming back.

"I have heard you," she said. She could not honestly say that she "understood".

"Good." And that was the last word she heard from him in English.


	4. Into the Emptiness

More days had passed, in a blur; she began to suspect that she was being deliberately kept sedated. Once she woke in the night and through the translucent curtain dividing her from the rest of the tent, she could hear muffled sounds of lovemaking. Of course, she realized, in this culture, a lone male would not just have "servant women" cooking and cleaning but wives. Of which she was apparently intended to be one. Why had he brought her to him? Her capture at the border must have been intended for this – and if that was the case, did Joan – who always had an odd soft spot for Eyal – had Joan _shipped_ her to him, sending her on a mission she knew would end in her being captured and sent to him? And if so, was she actually "on a mission" right now – one no one , least of all Eyal, was reading her in on? She was glad when sleep overtook her again.

When she woke, she could feel the stitches on a shaved strip of scalp and they were starting to itch but did not feel tender. Her thoughts were more disturbing to her than the incision. That morning, when Laylah, looking very pleasant and alive, came to tend to her, Annie had pulled out the needle again and refused to let her reattach it, pushing her away. Maybe without drugs she could start making sense of it all. This refusal brought Eyal to her quickly thereafter. She didn't know what to expect from him and braced herself for the worst, but he seemed calm and concerned.

"Laylah tells me her patient is becoming combative," he said, sitting down beside her.

"I don't need it. My pain level is manageable." He nodded, felt around her head, checked the stitches.

"You're healing well. I don't think you need so much sedation or pain meds, if any. I'll let you decide."

"Was it you? Who … fixed this?"

"You know I trained for it," he said, which was technically not true – she knew he had been "in medical school" but not that he was on a surgeon or neurosurgeon track, or that he was already adept at the necessary arts. Still, that specialty made perfect sense given his personality and skills. "it was not as bad as I feared it might be. Anything worse… would have been more challenging to handle," he said, with what she suspected was understatement. But he must have been able to get in a medevac or equivalent if needed, if a helicopter could come in? But then he would have possibly lost control of her. He ceased his inspection of her stitches but made no move away. He touched her, very lightly, on the chest. "I'm very glad _that_ injury did not come to me here," he said, softly, and gathered her to him, stroking the area over her heart, nuzzling his face into her hair, or at least, what was left of it. He stayed on the unshaven side. He held her tighter, as if realizing how close she had come to dying before. For a moment she let herself relax in his embrace, delighting in the scent of him and his touch, and then she tensed, realizing she didn't know what this meant in their new context, and he, at almost the same instance, abruptly changed the subject and loosened their embrace. "By the way, we're moving camp today. Your best course is to stay quiet and let Laylah and Hejra do what they need to do. I don't want you moving about much, and if you do, I will sedate you again. Do you understand?"

Those words were slightly easier to take in the context of Dr. Lavin than when she had heard them last, from her "new Islamic fundamentalist husband". And she was still slightly under the spell of the affectionate moment they had just shared. "Yes, doctor, I will comply."

He smiled at her. "Good. The next site is an oasis about sixty miles from here. It's cooler. You'll enjoy it."

"Ey-" She stopped herself. She never had been good at calling him by cover names, almost never getting it right in Santa Margarita – if that is what this is, she reminded herself. A "cover" name and not a name in religion. His eyes flashed at her as she stopped mid-word. But she continued. "Where are we?"

"At the moment, we are at the edge of the Rub al Khali." Her expression must have showed she had no idea where that was, and she was proud of her knowledge of geography. "In the middle of the Arabian peninsula. In the Empty Quarter."


	5. Designing Women

Eyal and many of the other men in the camp had been absent for days. Annie, improving daily, was growing increasingly restless though Laylah tried to keep her amused, or at least busy.

One morning stretched into afternoon, filled with just treating Annie's hair with a warm oil that softened it and left it glossy. Like a child, Laylah gave Annie a portion of food to cut up or a bread dough to pat out, indicating by demonstration and gesture what was needed – Laylah's Arabic was limited, her sister's non-existent –they both spoke a Bedouin dialect which Annie was determined to learn if only to pass the time, but Laylah seemed ashamed of her lack of Arabic and didn't want to share her own words. These culinary training experiments usually were not repeated when it was obvious Annie was not a quick learner in this area. Maybe Laylah would think her lack of cooking skills was somehow a result of her head injury. Annie brightened. Maybe this was all nothing but a conspiratorial plot between Eyal and her sister Danielle, Annie thought_. I am to be domesticated under duress, and then returned home, ready for a life in the suburbs. _She sighed. Laylah heard the sound and smiled at her understandingly. She held up three fingers, not to test her vision but, with a gesture up at the sky beyond the top of the tent, managed to indicate 'three days', doubtless the expected time of Eyal's return; he had been gone for over a week, leaving her in Laylah's care. She patted Annie's arm, reassuringly, and lightly pressed the hair back from Annie's face, patting the injured spot on her head, which no longer hurt at the slightest touch. Laylah looked like she had a secret, but also as if she wanted Annie's – agreement? She said some words that Annie didn't follow, and ran a finger along her hands and fingers, as if writing on them. Annie smiled back at her, wondering what she was possibly agreeing to. She liked the big, wolfish nomad woman, who had been tending to her with every indication of genuine caring – perhaps only to please their mutual "husband" but perhaps she enjoyed the unusual golden-haired addition to their group. Laylah left the main tent, a portion of which had also been serving as Annie's sickroom.

Apparently, Annie's reaction had been interpreted as assent, because the next afternoon, Laylah's younger sister and another woman she did not know entered the tent with the copper bath she had not seen since the traumatic afternoon of her arrival. Soon another woman arrived, this time with a package of Turkish Delight wrapped in cellophane. Laylah was throwing a party, and Annie was the reason – perhaps even her claim to fame. Others came in with vessels of warm water, until they numbered six or seven, possibly all the women of the camp. Laylah herself returned. One of the women, who seemed fascinated with Annie but did not seem to share Laylah's approval of her, translated – "She do this for you because you did not get a henna night. And now you feel better and you can have it. Because else the marriage is not good."

It was unnerving to be naked in front of the others, and more unnerving to have all of them participate in her cleaning and hair washing and drying off. Laylah prepared sugar with some other substances over a butane burner and the women slathered it on her arms and legs. A Brazilian bikini wax was much less severe and Annie yelped as the strips were pulled off, eliciting laughter from the group of women, which had grown to ten or twelve plus a handful of children. A few stray hairs were attacked with tweezers – one old woman used a clam shell - all the women were well-armed with beauty implements – as they drank a cinnamon drink and lemonade. Neither was supposed to be alcoholic but Annie felt a certain intoxication – maybe just from all the sugar.

It was Laylah who brought him in to her the next evening, where she had been carefully placed against the best pillows, dressed in mainly translucent garments to show off the intricate designs of henna left on her body from the process the day before, presenting her as his welcoming "present". Annie did not even know how to look at him; she felt a little silly in her fully decorated skin but didn't want to convey that to Laylah. But from the expression on Eyal's face, he did not seem to think it was silly at all. He turned to thank Laylah affectionately; she withdrew swiftly, her face lit with seemingly genuine pleasure and love for them both.

"Let me look at you," he said, and helped her up to her feet, turning her around, admiring the designs. Annie felt a stray henna tube squish beneath her toes, overlooked in the clean-up. "Beautiful." He put his hand on her cheek and gazed at her, not at the designs now, but at her eyes. "Thank you for letting her do this," he said finally. "It's given her great pleasure, and great status with the other women here. But do you understand what she intends?"

"I think so. This is to – um – bring me into the family?"

"You are there already, as chief wife. As you know. But Noor, being in that respected position, which no one can take from you, is not the same thing as she is urging, to please me and to celebrate your return to health . "

Annie wasn't sure where he was going with this. She looked up at him curiously.

"You are not obliged, not in any way. I know this life is not what you intended when you decided to return to our marriage, and came looking for me." He said carefully, restating the fiction. _For who? Annie wondered. Did he legitimately think she was so out of it or brain-damaged that repeating it could get me to believe it? Who was listening, and how? _ "So you must decide. Will returning to our bed make this life easier for you, better for you? If not, then it is better for us to stay separate. Refusing this will not affect how I treat you in any way. You will always enjoy my deepest affection and care." He was giving her every out possible, imaginable. Did he no longer want her? That thought shot through her. Maybe he was perfectly happy with his good Muslim wives, perhaps she was seen as a risk, a temptation to a rejected old life, a weakness that would only grow more potent if they were sleeping together one night out of three.

Annie kicked aside the henna tube at her feet before she stepped on it again, debating her answer; she hadn't expected this to be a decision, but a process that once begun by Laylah that , once she had given in, could not be stopped, perhaps even something requested by him, but that was apparently not the case and he was not taking advantage of that. He realized what the object she'd kicked aside was and bent to pick it up. "There is a custom," he said, taking her hand and guiding her to sit beside him on the carpeted floor against the best of the pillows, which Laylah had selected and arranged. "I don't know if Laylah could have communicated it to you. But when the women apply the henna, they will conceal the initials of the husband in the design. It's lucky to find them. Did they have you look for them?"

"No."

He looked at her arms and hands as if checking. It would not be on her feet – that would be too disrespectful for her mate. "Here, I will make it easy for you." He squeezed a line of henna from the prepared tube – it had surprised her that they had not made it with some arcane process, but just used prepared formulas from some bazaar , packed in bright boxes with a plastic applicator nib. He held her hand and in a bare area, applied the henna. She watched, disbelieving at first, as he inscribed his initials on her skin. "See, there they are." Was it a trick? He let her look at them for only a second, then with a casual movement that had to be deliberate, the wet henna was smudged and completely unreadable. "Oops. Pity it is so easy to smear when it is moist."

"Yes," she agreed, still wondering if she had seen what she thought she had. Because the initials were not of his new Arabic name, but of Eyal Lavin. In Hebrew letters. Yet his eyes, gazing at her pleasantly, gave no sign, no importance to it. She decided to draw his thoughts back to their near-mating before. "So this is it," she said, softly. "Remember we spoke of something like this when we first married in Santa Margarita. That there would be a later time, another moment even more important to us…" She was wondering if he would remember the time they discussed another "fake marriage for real" as that one had remained unconsummated.

"This time, under proper principles to guide us, yes. If that is what you want, now."

That answer was not the reassurance she was hoping for. Annie closed her eyes for a moment. In her mind she could see the letters he had written. If he was playing with her, the initials would mean nothing . Could he actually have written the wrong ones by accident? But his question to her earlier – would this make this strange life easier, better for her, to be held by him, even under bizarre pretenses? That she thought she could answer. Yes.

"Of course, it's wholly your choice, " he continued, seemingly a little unnerved by her long silence. " I will not … it's - The next move is yours, not mine, and only – do you really feel well enough? " His slight nervousness decided her. She reached her hand behind his head and brought his mouth to her own. No more encouragement was necessary.


	6. A Night of Falling Lights

Once Annie had welcomed him to her lips and arms, she thought her surrender was complete – but the familiar tent with its piled precious carpets apparently was too ordinary a place for him. He withdrew from their embrace long enough to murmur some orders to one of the youths that waited to such assignments before returning to her.

"Now where were we? I think I was …. Here," he decided, nuzzling against the sinuous curve of her collarbone, his hands palming her breasts, gently gliding over the traces of injury over her heart, his lips falling there, too. As he pressed against the area between her breasts, she realized that she had been holding that part of her in abeyance since her injury, that somehow, it had not yet come back from the near-death she had experienced, it was armored against injury - against life. And if her physical heart were not restored, what of her emotional one? _This one knows_, she thought. _This one knows even that about me_. He slid one hand from her breast to take the place of his mouth as he returned to kissing her lips, murmuring, "Oh, Noor…"

"Annie," she said, gasping. "At least tonight, call me by that name."

He closed his eyes and nodded, as if visualizing that name again in his mind. "Annie," he said, softy. "Annie."

At a sound from outside , he took her by the hand and led her out of the tent where a beautiful pale Arabian horse was waiting, saddled and lightly laden with a rolled carpet and a few other items. Eyal mounted first and then just lifted her up in front of him, holding her firmly to him and guiding the horse with his thighs and heels, the reins lying loose against the horse's neck. Her spirits rose as soon as they were invisible from the cluster of tents. She looked behind them. "No one else is with us? We are truly alone?"

"No one of faith is ever truly alone, beloved." She felt her joy at being away from the camp and with him, free, waver – but was he really being theological or warning her that they were never free of observers? "But I did not bring you here tonight to talk of such things. Let us enjoy the night – and each other."

Against the small of her back she could feel his passion rising against her. He turned her faced to his and kissed her and she reached her arms up around his neck. The pose was a little awkward as she was seated sidesaddle; she understood now why he had asked after her balance before this evening began. The horse settled into an easy, steady gait; Eyal was much more erratic, one hand behind her back, pressing her forward against him, the other freeing and teasing her nipples; Annie suddenly was aware that he had no intention of waiting until they were on solid ground – or at least more-solid sand. He moved her to sit astride the neck of the horse, but she didn't think he'd keep her in that position for long.

"Keep your eyes on the heavens," he whispered to her. "There is a surprise above us."

The hand that had been toying with her breasts dropped abruptly to her waistband and she heard the brutal rip of the silk as he turned and lifted her and pulled her toward him. Annie clung to his neck as she felt his hands on her,raising her and then pressing forward onto him. She was holding herself high, a little scared to so engage even as his kisses soothed her. Over his shoulder she could see the landscape moving backwards as the horse raced on, the unwitting third partner. A streak of light caught her eye. Tracer fire? No, she realized. A golden meteor, followed by another, and a third, so big that she could hear it hiss far above them, startling the horse who veered from the sound, the movement jolting them. She laughed, delighted. By the glow provided by the silvery unmoving stars she could see his pleasure in hearing her laughter. The angle of approach and the unfamiliar motion overwhelmed her as the streaking lights seemed to be harmonizing with the intense sensations. She let herself relax and felt him fill her even more deeply. He was contacting a deeply sensitive spot she did not know existed; with her legs wrapped around him, his belly was rubbing against her in yet another pleasurable way. She clung to him, taking her pleasure, and felt him accept his release as the lights continued to rain down around them.

It was only then, when they both were well satisfied, that he slowed the horse to a walk and then drew it up, setting her gently on the ground before dismounting himself. He picked her up and swung her around, kissing her. It was good to laugh with sheer animal joy and the intoxicating beauty of the night. He pulled down the carpet off of the saddle to give them a place to lie together to watch the sky and pulled out the food and refreshments. The horse stepped up and demanded a share of the dates Eyal was laying out. Eyal gave a handful to Annie o she could feed the horse, who seemed utterly neutral about what had just transpired on her back. Around them the rain of lights continued. It was the most beautiful night Annie could remember experiencing, and there was only the tiniest of voices telling her, if his new dedication is real, you cannot love him, you cannot be happy with him, you cannot surrender everything you value …

Oblivious to these thoughts, Eyal looked at her with a smile,his face close to her. "Are these meteors too? So bright and sparkling?" he teased. "Oh, no, now I realize, they are your eyes."

She was happy to smirk at the line, as corny in Arabic as it would be in English. He raised his eyebrows and shrugged, giving her the point, still smiling at her with what seemed like genuine joy. Even here, so alone, he was not dropping the pretense, still speaking Arabic though she had won on her name, and that gripped her heart and belly with anxiety. Surely now, here, they could speak, if only in whispers? But the clear night and the stretches of sand could make speech carry a long way, even without amplification. Beyond the crest of another dune, who knew what lay there, listening? The night would carry even this sound, of drinking mead from a clay bottle, of their breathing,of his mouth pressing to hers, of his hand stroking her hair. But nothing could monitor the feeling of his tongue tasting of dates playing in her mouth, or the henna on her own skin still fragrancing the air around them, or the feeling of the soft carpet against the surprisingly firm sand beneath her back. _This much is real_, Annie thought, as she gathered him into her. _That wherever we are, in whatever circumstances, there's a magic between us._ One word worked to describe it in either language, either circumstance, she thought. _Kismet._


	7. Purification

If she was expecting a desert honeymoon, she was sorely disappointed. Almost immediately after their night together, most of the men left the camp on quick notice, leaving behind the women and children and the older man who dyed his beard red with henna and who Annie mentally nicknamed "Red". He had a bitter-looking wife who had paricipated in Annie's henna ceremony; she had looked over the henna since then, praising its darkness. But it seemed to Annie she had been looking for something else - had she suspected Eyal could use the designs for his own, well, designs? The Red One's chief wife paid her a visit when she was in the women's tent with Laylah. She was all smiles, but there was something unnerving about her and Annie could see that Laylah was not really pleased, either. But Laylah got praise for the quality of the henna, much of which she had applied and she had added some special ingredients. The Red One's wife, whose Arabic was good, looked over the designs with admiration. "So well done. Except here, smudged, too bad." Laylah looked at the smudged spot with a frown, but said nothing, "You know, there is a story, as long as the henna is dark, you don't have to do any work for your mother in law. But you are lucky, no mother in law!"

Two weeks of solitude had stretched into a third. Layla made every attempt to keep her busy, for which Annie was grateful, though she had not particularly wanted to add "rug knotting" to her list of skills and she saw that some of her work was undone at night and repaired. The sisters had each other, and though Annie could communicate the basics with them in their dialect reasonably well now, they were a long way from having very satisfying conversations. She stayed with them at night but spent most of her day in the larger tent, in part because it felt more of him.

What would she do if he never came back?

What was most alarming about that thought was that she probably would have no leeway whatsoever in that situation. If something bad had befallen him, everyone else would know before she did and some sort of action would be put into play – as likely to result in her quick death as anything else. Not for the first time she gazed at the far horizon, separated from her by deadly miles of desert. If she stole a vehicle …. But there was never only one vehicle in the camp. She'd have to disable all but one, whichever had the most fuel or speed, and then make her attempt. It might be time to do just that.

But then the camp grew tense around her; it was strange how swiftly the change in energy could be noted. Suddenly there was an air of anticipation, and she was right – before a few hours had passed, a small convoy of vehicles found them, announced by the visible dust rising from far away. Layla heated water for washing and prepared food; their master was returning. , Annie found herself arranging stuffed grape leaves much too carefully, for the prettiest and most appetizing effect, on a large chased-metal brass tray. So this was her version of the 1950s housewife preparing a pitcher of martinis for hubby coming home on the commuter train. The martinis sounded like a very good idea, she thought ruefully, but the camp was dry outside of the pretended non-alcoholic honey wine, which actually packed quite a kick. Elsewhere in the camp a sheep was slaughtered and put on a spit, the aroma already rising through the heat and dust; if it followed the usual pattern the men would feast into the night and the women would get their share of the leftovers and what they could snatch during the preparations. Layla and her sister covered and went outside under a shade awning and waited. Annie stayed inside the tent; she hated drawing the outer covering garment over her other clothes, which were at least pretty in a tribal-culture-meets-Hollywood-harem-movie type of way, and did it as seldom as possible. She heard the sound of vehicles, the ululations of Layla and her sister and the other women in camp, shouts of men, interrupted with the usual celebratory gunfire, and she waited. She expected him to enter with some of the men, which would require her to retreat, but he had dismissed them and came in alone, apparently having shooed away Laylah and Hejira as well. Incongruously, but with a modernity she appreciated as it reminded her that the outside world still existed, he entered wearing desert camos and sunglasses and for a second, he could have been – he was - Eyal Lavin returning from a mission. When he came closer, she moved to greet him, expecting an embrace, but he waved her off and she could see the bloodstains, already washed away at least once, on what he was wearing.

"Are you hurt?"

"The blood is on me but it is not mine," he said. He removed his sunglasses and tossed them aside as if they somehow still contained images he did not want to see, but even without them, his eyes looked so dark and grim it seemed as if there were still a barrier in place.

"What has happened?"

"I have been waging war." What that meant she did not know, or how awful it might be. She was not normally a prayerful person, but she found herself thinking, God rest their souls, whoever they were. And most especially forgive _this_ one for whatever he did. There was death all around him. He held out his hands, not to her,but to be washed; she soaked a cloth in one of the basins of hot water – Layla knew what this return would entail. Perhaps she had done this for him in the past, but it was Annie's task now. Once his hands were rinsed, he began to pull at his clothing, and she helped him. The desert camouflage wear was familiar to her; this man-as-Eyal had worn something similar, even his attire when he rescued her in Russia had been similar to this. For a moment she wanted to cling to the normality of the clothing, instead of the long tunic and loose trousers he usually wore around the camp, but this was tainted cloth. He was intent on stripping naked, undoing his shoes – she was surprised that wasn't her task, but he was saving her from that, pulling off the boots and dirt- caked socks, then freeing himself from his underwear. She looked him over, not with a sensual eye, though it was always hard to regard his muscular, beautifully well-formed body with anything like indifference, but checking for damage, In the weeks he had been gone he had put on muscle and grown leaner. Though he had a few bruises and scratches, he was not wounded. He stood there, naked, regarding her, his arms at his sides, his palms turned out and toward her. It was the posture of a supplicant. She could see him stir slightly with desire for her, but that was not his purpose at this moment, either.

"Cleanse me." He added "Please," and there was something in that single word that ripped at her heart. She wondered if there were some ritual that she should know, something she was meant to do.

"You want me to wash you," she confirmed. "Is there some special way I should do this?"

"Accomplish it however you will. Only your hands can clear me …. Of this, N…" He hesitated on the sound before finishing the word as "Noor,". But had he meant to call her Neshema? Or had he meant to call that word to her mind by that pause?

And if so, what the hell did _that_ mean?

She washed his face, his ears with the prominent lobes she loved, his neck and shoulders, working slowly and thoroughly. He closed his eyes and let them stay closed for a long time as she continued her ministrations. It occurred to her that until now, everything they had done together could be what lovers might do, that might be within more casual or untested bonds. But this, washing her mate returned from battle, that was the work of a wife, a life mate. Chief wife, she corrected herself, amazed that her life had conspired to put her in this place, and then she renewed her attention to the task. He was technically clean; somewhere between whatever battlefield he had been on, there had been a shower, a physical cleansing, the uniform laundered. That was not what he wanted from her. She worked methodically, making sure that her hands and the moist cloth contacted every bit of his skin. He moved only to allow her better access and finally he sat on the carpet and she did his feet, toe by toe. She moved back to his head and gently washed his hair. She saw that Layla had supplied a flask of scented oil and she began again, lightly covering him in the unguent. He watched her but let himself sigh with relaxation as the oil did its work. But his passivity unnerved her; even as she touched his phallus, he scarcely reacted; it felt as if she were preparing his body for burial, another task that could well fall to her as his wife. He saw the tears form in her eyes and reached up, with an expression like wonder, as if filled with renewed surprise that she could so care for him, to touch her cheek with his fingertips. She lay down beside him, a curious chastity between them, her clothed body by his bare one. He drew her to him and kissed her but she knew it would be no more for now, though handling him as she had made her ache for him. Outside the tent they could hear noise, revelry, and the smell of the roasting sheep was growing stronger. He reacted to the sound. "I must join them," he said, moving. "Not yet," she responded, and held him close for a few moments longer. She understood; he could not be absent from such a celebration, it would be expected of him, an absence would confuse his comrades and seem disapproving of this great "victory" if that was truly what it was. But she didn't think he wanted to be among them now. He let her hold him as long as she wished; finally she let him go as more jubilant gunfire broke out and he touched her cheek. "Thank you."

"My honor and pleasure, my husband," she said; the words were strange to her but it felt right to formally end their time together and the healing that he had sought from her hands on him. He raised an eyebrow slightly, as if trying to zero in and determine if she was being sarcastic, if he should take offense. He found no trace of that and smiled and chuckled softly, still unsure of her.

Layla, ever prepared, had laid out fresh clothing for him and he drew on his usual garments and left the tent. His arrival outside increased the shouting and added more gunfire; whatever he had done, wherever he had done it, he had earned the praise of this den of vipers. Could she really have cleansed him from that, even for a moment?


	8. A Misplaced Pawn

Laylah came and retrieved her from the women's tent. The larger tent had been taken up with a meeting with some of the men, and other than preparing trays of food which were then carried in by boys, they'd had no contact. "Come now, come now," she said, happy. "He brought gifts, you too."

Annie winced at her own reaction, which despite the seriousness of their encounter on his return the previous day was a simple happy excitement as if she'd been told Santa Claus had arrived during the night. _Uh oh – I can be bribed with trinkets_, she thought. The most challenging part of this now was just how normal it had become, how far she knew herself to be seduced, even if some of the time she had to mentally pretend that she was enjoying an extended stay at a very unusual boutique hotel. The problem, she realized, was that if she had been forced into this situation with an unknown male captor, it would have been easier to keep up her guard and keep up her resistance. But most of her did not want to resist Eyal. Her desire for him was obediently peaking every three days, coinciding with "her" night, but never being completely absent. She had never enjoyed such a prolonged period of perfectly regular lovemaking, and it only built her appetite for it. Their renewed "marriage" was from the outside and by local standards a resounding success. But she put these thoughts aside, curious to see what she had been brought and to see if she could get any additional meanings out of his choices.

Laylah was delighted with some fabrics, a bracelet, packages of herbs, saffron to replace what Annie had wasted when not watched closely enough during the making of saffron rice, and a copper cooking utensil Laylah had apparently craved. Hejra was taken care of with pre-made clothing , modern things she could wear inside when uncovered – Annie found herself slightly jealous of a plain but well-fitting t-shirt, but she thought that was unbecoming of a Chief Wife, and besides, there was more for her, pretty things in good fabrics, partly because she had the fewest items of clothing since she had arrived with nothing and perhaps because of her exalted position. But some of her items were packed in a tote bag that looked like it fell off a luggage carousel – nothing ethnic or tribal about it. He was watching her as she opened it, and she could tell he was pleased with what it contained. She opened the heavy bag curiously.

"I know your gift for languages, Noor," he told her. She pulled out the books. One was the equivalent of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, only for Arabic, giving, in Arabic, the most detailed histories of the words, their use in literature, in the Koran, everything. It was huge, printed on thin paper, and could occupy her for weeks, doubtless his intention. The companion volume he presented to her with a flourish. Oh joy, her own copy of the Koran, but at least a pretty leather-bound edition, and a book - she had to nail her smile to her face to thank him properly- on Women's Place in Islam - A Practical Guide with Examples and Exercises.

Eyal had also made a purchase for himself - an ornate inlaid chess board box which held the pieces and unfolded into a board. He dismissed Laylah and Hejira after allowing them some time to play with some of their new acquisitions in an impromptu fashion show. Annie sighed. The strangeness of her daily life never ceased to amaze her. When they were alone, he smiled at her and drew her close to him. But for once, romance was not on his mind. He unfolded the chess table. "I know you don't play," he said, firmly. "But we will change that very quickly." Annie opened her mouth to correct him – of course she knew at least the rudiments of chess. But perhaps he really wanted the pleasure of introducing her to something new? "I know you'll catch on quickly, with your gift for languages. Chess has a lovely language of its own, endlessly intriguing and informative. See? We have the eight major pieces arrayed along here – " He set out the pieces, counting as he did so. "One two three four five six seven eight. And now the pawns – nine ten eleven twelve thirteen fourteen … Here are your pawns – fifteen, sixteen – " he counted out the row in front of her, stopping at 24. "Chess was invented in Greece," he said, and she refrained from correcting him, surprised he did not seem to know it was an Arabic game. "Alexander the Great was a fluent player. Do you think you can understand this, Annie? How the pieces all assemble together?" He tapped his forefinger along the edge of the board nearest to him. "It's generally a man's game, but there have been some fine women players, though women's logic is not so well suited to it. It's actually a very clear process to get from "A" to "B". Do you think you can understand it?

"Yes, I'm sure I can," she said, bewildered.

"Excellent. You can lay out your main pieces as I did mine. I'll start. You must start with a pawn, or a knight, but that isn't good practice. Here. I'll start with this brave pawn, this alpha pawn." He pushed forward the pawn at what was to her the far left of the row of opposing pawns. That made no sense – she was not a strong player, but she knew it was usual for pawns in the center to move out first, not from the sides.

The tent flap lifted and Red, the older camp leader who tinted his beard with henna, entered. His visit was unexpected, she was sure, or Eyal would not have set them up to play together. Annie , with a movement that was automatic now, swiftly covered her head.

"I am sorry to disturb you!" Red announced. "Ah, a chess set! How wonderful! I did not know you play, Faisal! We will enjoy many games together."

"I will be delighted. Noor has a long way to go to learn the game. I would appreciate a more able adversary."

"Noor" made her exit, retreating to the women's tent through the few steps of oppressive heat and blazing sun. Inside Laylah and Hejira were still toying with their new luxuries. Annie slid onto some pillows, still thinking of Eyal's strange behavior. He never doubted her intelligence, or ability to catch on to something - why present this so condescendingly? Hopefully this was not the start of some new terrible trend. And he must genuinely not have thought she was likely to catch on or he would not have so quickly substituted Red as his opponent.

Laylah broke into her thoughts. "This, I think, better for you!" she said, happily, encouraging Annie to try on one of the clothing items she had been given. Annie dutifully tried on the vest and tried to return Laylah's joyfulness.


	9. In Hot Water

The evening was cooling as the moon began to rise, magnified by the atmosphere, a huge ball that was first ruddy, then lightened to an opalescent cream. It was not meant to be her night, but both Laylah and Hejira were bleeding in accord with the moon. She went to him in his tent, earlier than was usual, but the giant moon was stirring her. And she was not surprised that he was clearly waiting for her.

"It's a beautiful night, Noor. We won't waste it. Now you'll see the desert at its most beautiful. In the full moonlight. With me." His eyes were sparkling and she recalled the last night they had spent on the sand, under the meteor shower. Once again, he had the horse brought to them.

She was not bleeding; it was not her night, but Hejira and Laylah were, and so it fell to her. They had just moved camp recently.

"I have a surprise," he said.

"Another?"

"As good as the last. Possibly better." This time he did not seem to be planning for a ménage a cheval; he seemed intent on riding swiftly over the hard dry ground. She snuggled against his chest and watched the bleached-white sands speed by. They were out of the area of the dunes;; here it was a hard stony surface with cliffs and outcroppings. It was beautiful in an austere way, almost a lunar landscape, as if they were riding on the moon, not beneath its light. He knew where they were going and turned toward a narrow wadi opening up in high cliffs. They rode up the small valley, formed by a nearly-vanished stream, and ascended to the top of the cliff by an ancient path. Annie became aware of a faintly sulfurous smell, not unpleasant, but unusual. He pulled up the horse and they dismounted. To her surprise, Eyal was pulling off his clothes. Then she realized – there was a hot spring flowing into a small basin. She followed, divesting herself of her garments with his help. "I don't believe this - you found us an ancient Jacuzzi!"

"The desert has many secrets, Noor, some more delightful than others." He laid out some refreshments along the edge of the natural rocky tub, refined by a few thousand years of nomad travelers, and lit a lamp that looked as if it could have been left behind by one of those ancient travelers. Flat rocks lined the rim.

"Ah, for a good bottle of Pinot…"

He shrugged. "We have other ways of intoxication, now. No need for what is forbidden. And this," he said, drawing her to him and kissing her, "Is not forbidden. On the contrary," he added, nuzzling her neck, "It's a requirement."

"_Definitely_ a requirement."

"See, you are learning the obligations are not all so burdensome." The hot spring, not supplied with Jacuzzi jets, began churning and roiling nonetheless.


	10. Devastation

When the waters had calmed, Annie let her head rest against his chest. The pool was slightly deeper than she was tall, giving her a wonderful sensation of floating. The moon was so bright it almost hurt her eyes, a second sun in the night. "I think desert life is agreeing with you," he said, softly. "You're always beautiful to me, but never more so than now. You're as luminous as that moon glowing above us."

She smiled and pressed her hand against his chest. "It looks like it agrees with you, too," she said, feeling his powerful muscles beneath her fingers. He had grown leaner and sharply cut, full of strength.

"That part of it I like very much, the constant physical conditioning." _That part?_ Annie thought. _So there are other parts not so enjoyable? _But she couldn't bear to break into the moment with questions.

"This is new," she said, stroking her fingers over a healed cut in his shoulder. It was not a bullet wound; possibly a knife slash. Or even a surgical repair, she thought, the line was so thin and clearly delineated.

"Occupational hazards," he said. He placed one of his hands over her heart, where that wound from her own "occupational hazard" was slowly fading; she knew she'd bear the mark to some degree forever. She pressed her own hand onto his.

The warmth finally drove them to withdraw. Eyal pulled on his sandals and scrambled up over the rocks, not bothering to replace his clothing. _Well, this is about as unveiled as I can get,_ Annie thought, following, relishing the freedom of moving in the still-warm night air. They were on the top of the cliffs now, looking down at the empty desert below. Behind them was a broad flat mesa, empty of anything. The horse remained down in the valley, worrying the struggling plants and grasses along the rope-wide stream, the stingy overflow from the spring.

They could not be more alone. Annie looked around again, just to be sure. They could see anyone approaching for what, ten miles or more in the bright moonlight? There was nothing on the mesa, not a pile of rocks, not a tree.

"Eyal, we are utterly alone."

"Yes. But you know that is not my name anymore."

"Really?"

"I know it must disappoint you. But yes, really. We must get beyond this, Noor. There is no going back to our old life. It doesn't matter if we are in camp or utterly alone. There is no difference in me."

"I don't believe it." Annie said firmly."I don't believe you've turned your back on your faith, on Israel, on any of it."

"It should be obvious at this moment I am not hiding anything, Noor!" he said, spreading out his arms, emphasizing his nakedness. "There is nothing but the truth in what I say. That all belongs to a man who is dead, and gone. You are the only thing that has come through, from that life to this. And the sooner you accept it all – and accept Allah - the better.'

Annie shook her head. "You know I cannot do that. Whatever you've done, or are saying you've done, I can't go there."

"It is not open for debate, Noor." he said, forcefully. "And you had better understand that – here, let me say it in English, so there can be no mistake. This change is real. I reject everything that has gone before, my old faith, the lies of that Zionist occupying nation, everything. None of it matters to me."

"So you woke up one day and suddenly threw all that away?"

"I woke up one day with the discovery of my real family and my real path. I woke up – I did wake up – to realize the lies I had been fed. And I woke up to the horrors I committed against the innocents who were closer to me in blood than my own supposed family. There had been things that had not added up – even just feelings, things I had to do that were hard to stomach. Now I know why. And this was not quick. You think this started a few months ago. No. This change has been a long time coming. I've told you many things, Noor, many lies, biding my time until this shift could come."

"What about your sister?" His eyes dropped. At least that was a reaction. "Do you forgive _her _killer? The Cardinal? Do you regret killing _him_?"

He did not look up. "I understand her killer's reasoning better now. But do I forgive him? Of course not. Taking his life was perfectly acceptable under Sharia law. Necessary, even. He did what he felt he had to do, in his struggle, and I did what I had to do as a member of her family, even though there was no blood between us. Not a man in camp would disagree."

"What about your son? What about Avi?"

"My son? You mean that boy I picked out of a crowd when I needed to make a deeper emotional connection with you? So you would believe more lies more readily? Even as I did that, I thought, I should've chosen the boy next to him, number six. He looked more like me. " Annie felt the adrenalin jam her stomach. Avi was a lie?

"So that's it? We have nothing? Nothing is true?"

"I wish that were so!" he said, nearly shouting. "I wish, when I sat with the prince and he showed me that tape of you and that – monster – and when he said that if you were a problem to me, you could go away quite easily – I wish that I could have said, "yes, she is a problem to me, take her away and kill her, or just let her die.' But no, Annie, I could not do that. I've told you more lies than I can count but there is one thing I've never said to you, something that is not a lie."

"So you think because you love me – or think you do – that I should go along with all this? When you are aiding those who hate everything about me and my country and my way of life?"

"If you loved _me_ enough it would not matter!"

"I do love you, Eyal." She let the words hang. "But this is not you – this is insane. If you really believe this, if they have really turned you somehow, it isn't you – it's drugs or torture or whatever. The man I know could never become a jihadi!"

"I could never follow the True Faith, is that what you are saying?"

"There's nothing true about it!"

He went deadly quiet. "Recant what you just said."

"You know I will not."

"I am asking you again."

"You know my answer."

He stared at her, his eyes stripped of any color or warmth by the bright moonlight, no difference between his pupils and his irises. He turned without a word and headed back down toward the spring. She did not want to follow him. But in the morning it would take about three hours before she would be dead from exposure on the burning hot plateau, a little longer if she stayed by the spring. They gathered their things and dressed in silence and she went in silence down the little valley and onto the desert floor. She wasn't fool enough to think she could survive in the desert, but she knew the direction of the camp and the horse's hooves had left enough marks on the ground for her to follow. But it was only moments before she heard the pounding hooves of the horse and felt herself roughly snatched up from behind and jammed onto the saddle in front of him. He said nothing to her, and though they were sitting close together, his body against her seemed as inanimate and cold as a piece of furniture. Back at camp, in the gap between the main tent and the women's tent he put her on the ground.  
"This is not the end of this," he said.

"No. It's just the end of us," she answered. He rode off, back into the desert, She entered the women's tent and fell into a fitful sleep.

**Author's Note: Next chapter goes darker still and involves violence. **


	11. Damage

_**AUTHOR'S NOTE: Okay, hang on, here we go. I've wrestled with this but this is the way it wanted to be written. This is not a comfy chapter and some readers may prefer to skip ahead to Chapter 12; events here will be mentioned in passing and you'll know what happened but won't be detailed as they are below. Hope you stick with me (but understand if you don't). It eventually all makes sense - even this.**_

Laylah came to her, waking her with a hand on her shoulder, but Annie had not really slept since they had returned in the cold white hours of the full moon. The look on Laylah's face was ghastly, unreadable, a mixture of fear, and anger, and sorrow and a desperate resignation.

"Laylah, what is it?"

"He is very angry," Laylah replied, her stress making her Arabic difficult to follow. "Very, very angry." To Annie's alarm, tears flew out of Laylah's eyes as she emphasized each syllable. For one of the few moments In her life, despite all the dangers she had faced in the past, Annie felt a sick fear in her stomach. She saw that Laylah had a garment in her hand. "We put this on," she said to Annie. Annie shook her head. It was a heavier brocade vest, winter wear, too hot for now. She shook her head. "No, I don't want that…" Laylah looked wild for an instant.

"You put it on," she said shrilly. "You put it on!"

Outside Annie heard noises, the sounds of men, a thumping sound as something was being built, a faint jingle of sound. She suddenly knew what it was – the pole that her guard had been tied to. For his execution at the moment she'd arrived.

"Laylah, what's happening? What's going on?" She started to pull off the upper garment she was wearing to put on the one Laylah had brought her, but Laylah wouldn't let her, putting it on her over the other garment. "He will punish you," Laylah managed.

"Punish me?" Now the clot of fear in her stomach seemed to fill every fiber of her, accompanied by utter disbelief. Yes, they had argued. Yes, they had both said things they should not have – and yes, Annie knew she had gone too far, but what now? Her guard's punishment had been to be sliced open – that surely… "How? Laylah, what's going to happen to me?"

"He will – " The tears were in Laylah's eyes. She batted them away with the back of her hand, and grabbed Annie to her, holding her firmly for a moment, then letting there be space enough between them so that she could look in Annie's eyes. Something new seemed to cross Laylah's face. Annie saw her nostrils flare, as if aware of a new scent.

"What?" Annie persisted.

"He will – " Her Arabic was failing her. Desperate, she struck Annie lightly on the shoulders. "Like a camel. Like a horse."

Annie turned in disbelief toward new sounds, voices. She tried to follow it. Then Mrs. Red appeared at the opening of the tent, asking if Annie was ready. Laylah looked at Mrs. Red with ferocity. Mrs. Red seemed content with her role of coming to get the condemned and had a superior look on her face. She would not be crying tears over the blooding of a golden-haired foreign girl.

_No, I am certainly not ready for this_. But Annie got to her feet. All she could think of for this moment was to not make this any harder on Laylah than it was already, and she patted Laylah's arm reassuringly. Laylah looked her over with a sudden, intense scrutiny and then put the outer covering over her. "Ask him," Laylah said, "Ask him, please, don't do this. Be low," and Laylah crouched a little. "Please, no, sorry, say that."

"It is too late for that," Mrs. Red advised placidly, in her excellent Arabic.

And the three of them walked out into the sun. Annie's throat was parched; she asked Laylah for water and she darted off to find some, pressing a metal cup into Annie's hand which she drank down gratefully just before she saw Eyal in the middle of a group comprised of every man and every woman in the camp, plus the children. It wasn't exactly a festival atmosphere, instead one that seemed tense and full of argument.

Eyal saw her approaching. A glimpse at his dark and angry eyes made it clear to her that there was no mercy ready for her in that direction, and what she had hoped with some part of her mind, that this would be a performance of some kind that would end with her evading this, that it would be a symbolic rite rather than a reality, she knew would not occur. And her other fear, that the whole camp would revel, like Mrs. Red, in seeing her hurt, was also unfounded. The other women, though she could only see their eyes, looked sullen. Most of the men looked uneasy. As she watched, her adversary Red went up to Eyal, but from what she could catch and his gestures, she realized that he was trying to dissuade him. There was coiled at Eyal's hip the kind of whip used on recalcitrant camels, though Annie noticed the tip was wide and round, not sharp. The goal then, was mostly pain, not damage? He was obviously so prepared to do this. And his anger seemed completely real. She thought she could smell it on him, a rage. Which was not good for her. They were growing near to him now, and his face lost none of its grimness.

Then Laylah deliberately tripped her, forcing an impromptu drop to her knees at an appropriate moment and distance. "She begs you, don't do this! Please, don't do this!", Laylah cried out, pretending Annie had dropped to her knees on purpose.

Annie could read a cue as well as anyone. If Laylah thought this might be a way out, so be it. "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry." She carried on in the vein that Laylah had suggested.

"It takes more than just new words to wipe away what said to me last night. I will not be disrespected ! "

"She is not used to our ways yet," she heard Red interject,surprising her – she had always thought of him as a disapproving enemy.

"She will be more used to them after this," Eyal responded swiftly.

Laylah was at her ear. "Beg him, beg him, grab his feet…" She nuzzled Annie's neck through her outer garment.

But Annie knew it was useless. She scrambled back up to her feet and though she knew it was the last thing she should be doing, she marched herself over to that damned pole. It seemed to be Mrs. Red's honor to tie her to it, something she enjoyed, making the thong too tight. Laylah was right there as well and complained, but Mrs. Red made no adjustment. Once again Laylah advised her, "Face forward, head down, _protect your face_, don't turn around, not till it is really over…"

The camp went deathly silent. Her prostration in front of him was part of the accepted chain of events, but not her defiance. This was so wrong, she thought. I just violated every bit of training I've had, to delay, delay, delay, keep your adversary calm, offer a distracting bit of useless but new information that will take time to verify. Perhaps he would have provided a way out for her, but just not at that moment yet, and she was forcing his hand.

_I'm justifying him. I'm making it my fault_, Annie thought, horrified.

She felt the women move suddenly away from her. And then she felt him, as she could in space sometimes, from their connection which could be so powerful, his own energetic presence, now crackling and angry.

And then she felt the lash fall on her shoulder, streak diagonally down her back, burning through the several layers of fabric and Laylah's brocade top. She gasped. There were voices. Apparently some thought that single stroke was symbolic punishment enough. Eyal was not one of them. Again, then, on the other shoulder, and that time, the tip of the lash had almost snaked its way around to her face and her lips blooded against the post as her body instinctively tried to get away from the blow. She bent her head as Laylah had advised, raised up her throbbing shoulders, but perhaps that was a wrong move? Moving the target area closer to her neck and head ?

There was a commotion behind her, more arguing, Laylah's voice, then Red's, angry responses from Eyal. Annie, still reeling from shock of the blows, tried to track what was being said. She raised her eyes to look at where her hands were, over her head, the thong binding them making them tingle as the circulation cut off, and she gazed at the hot blue sky above her fingers. And that was what she was looking at when she realized what Laylah was saying.

_Funny_, Annie thought, strangely calm_, I never expected this moment to occur while bound to a pole to be beaten for blasphemy by my otherwise-loved husband. I expected to have it occur when I was in a tiled bathroom peering at a pee stick or seated in a comfortable chair in front of a doctor's desk._ Because what Laylah was saying, for anyone to hear, perhaps as a ploy, perhaps as a truth, was "_She is pregnant_!" She heard Eyal snap back, apparently unwilling to give her such an "easy" out, "_Are you sure_?" Laylah insisted.

It seemed to be a long time before anyone thought to untie her. She turned around. Eyal was nowhere to be seen – she suspected he had stalked off. Red had vanished, along with Laylah. Mrs. Red was still there but looked rather disgusted, her brows curdled in a frown. Hejira was the one who came forward and worked the knots loose and led her back into the women's tent. She was not a big talker but cooed a few words of comfort and stroked Annie's hair and rubbed her wrists, which were hurting nearly as badly as her back. A few minutes later, Laylah joined them, taking off Annie's clothes, cool cloths at the ready which nonetheless stung as they were applied. Laylah bundled up the brocade garment before Annie could see it. Though the fabric was whole, the power of the lash had still wreaked its damage on her skin. Annie accepted their ministrations but then twisted away to look at Laylah. She seemed to have regained some of her usual calm. Annie caught her eyes and pressed one hand to her own belly. "Is what you said true?" she asked.

Laylah nodded, touched her nose, touched Annie's belly. "Yes," she said. "I said – I should have said earlier. But I did not think, I did not know. Now, I do. You are with child."

_**AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks for sticking it out. PM me or review...**_


	12. Delay

The nights that belonged to Laylah and Hejira passed – Hejira always wanted Laylah to go with her on her night - and Annie remained alone in the women's tent. The following night was to be hers, of course, but she refused Laylah's efforts to prepare her, ignoring her beseeching words and her obvious fear that if Annie did not return to him, she might be punished as well – or perhaps she was trying to convey that it could be Annie who would receive still more lashes. But Annie was adamant – she was not washing, she was not dressing specially, she was not leaving the women's tent. Hejira and Laylah went; that was up to them, and if it spared them punishment, that was fine with Annie. "We go, but you know, we don't let him do anything! Not until you and he -" Laylah pressed her hands together, palm to palm, which Annie took to mean "reconcile". In Laylah's world view, there was no question that this could be accomplished, and she doubtless saw the sexual diet she and Hejira were imposing on Eyal would only help make it happen more quickly. But Annie couldn't bear the thought of even looking at him; the more time the better. While she smiled over the solidarity Laylah and Hejira were showing her, she tried to convey that no, that was fine, keep him happy, keep him away from her...

It was the middle of the night, the darkest of starless skies, when she realized that she was no longer alone in the women's tent. Beside her, seated as if he had been there for a long time, was Eyal. She recognized the pose; it was a way to sit unsupported in reasonable comfort for a long time, she'd learned it in surveillance practice. If he was aware of her eyes on him, he gave no sign. He was not asleep; the breathing rhythm was wrong for that. At first his presence made her anxious – what was he planning, what might this strange awful Eyal do to her? But she fell asleep and woke again, and his position was unchanged. The next time she awoke, responding to some soft sound, there was greyness outside and the tent flap was just settling back into position. He had spent the night beside her, then left without a word.

What did he hope to accomplish by that? He could not have even been sure she would notice.

Annie lay in the dark staring at the tent above her. Her hands went to her own belly, though she knew it was too soon to be able to feel any difference, too soon to confirm Laylah's analysis. She could not recall her last period – it might have happened in the time when she was floating in and out of consciousness, if her injuries had not completely disrupted her cycles. And if something else had not "disrupted" her in that way before she ever arrived in the desert. What was worse, in her heart, she wanted to rush to Eyal and discuss everything with him – but she knew she was reaching out for an Eyal who did not exist now, who could not be trusted even with her basic physical safety any longer.

But if not him, then who? They didn't call this region "The Empty Quarter" for nothing. She could perhaps go to Red and ask for some sort of asylum - but the thought of being under the direct power of Mrs. Red seemed a worse fate than casting her lot with Eyal. He'd hurt her in anger - though an anger he had had hours to tame - while Mrs. Red had made the most of the opportunity to cause her just a little more distress and pain.


	13. An Oath

She stayed away for the next nights, by rights belonging to the others. That following afternoon, Laylah came for her, conveying that he wanted to see her. Annie hesitated but there seemed to be nothing to gain from staying completely isolated from him – her point was made - and she was curious if any sort of apology was forthcoming. She doubted it – there were only two alternatives. The first, that she preferred and thus distrusted the most, was that the entire sequence of events was unavoidable, for reasons beyond his control, that some greater purpose was served by it, that her life or their lives or some crucial mission depended on it.

The second was that there was no ambiguity; she had offended his new-found beliefs and there was no going back from it, or from the reality that he was from this point her former friend, former lover, and present abuser.

Laylah made her pause once it was obvious she was agreeing to go, fiddling with her hair, attempting to put kohl around her eyes, but Annie wanted none of it; she was not dressing up to go beg forgiveness, even though she knew that, strategically, it would be best to look good. She did notice, entering the tent flap Laylah opened for her, that _he_ had taken special care; his beard was neatly trimmed, his garments the more formal versions which set off his height and enhanced his natural air of confidence and control and presented him at his most handsome and exotic. He looked very much in command of himself, but she saw his Adam's apple move as he swallowed, hard, before speaking to her.

"You are looking well," he said.

"I am recovering," she answered, staying near the entrance.

"Let me see. " She did not move to give him access and she felt her lips pressed together more tightly, in anger. "If not as your husband than as your physician…"

"The one trying to heal what the other has harmed?" she spat. He did not answer. But she had no desire to scar if there was help for it – Laylah, first tending her, seemed to think it was not so bad but her standards of both tolerable pain and acceptable damage were likely to be different. He came to her and by gesture made it clear he would draw off her concealing outer robe which she had to wear for even the few steps from the women's tent to his. She did not resist; it seemed he pulled it off of her with something like distaste, quickly, and threw it aside in a crumpled ball, and she cringed inwardly; don't Annie, don't ascribe to him the feelings that will let you care for him, let you believe there is a "reason" to all of this, don't believe that he is trying to show you, by gesture if not by word, that he doesn't really agree with this, that he regrets it. She hardened her heart by remembering the anger in him from that day, which she could not penetrate, or believed she could not. Laylah, perhaps with wisdom, had given her a nearly-transparent top to wear today; he could not fail to see any bad marks at close quarters, even if examining them had not been his intention.

She heard him exhale behind her. "These should all heal well without any scarring," he said, apparently with relief.

"No," she answered. It was much too late for them to heal without scarring, but she left that unspoken. He turned her, very gently, to face him. The gentleness – the gentleness _now_ –angered her so much and so suddenly that she pulled back and landed a blow harder than she had even intended on his previously beloved jaw. _I am fully descending to his level and that felt great_, Annie thought, and though he diverted the next blow she tried to land, he was not defending himself beyond the minimum and certainly not fighting back; she knew his skills very well and though he obviously did not want any other strong, visible blow to land – let's see if _that _scars! - he did no more than keep her away. So she contented herself with slapping at his chest; those blows he did not even defend against, letting her wale on him. At some point she realized, to her irritation that she was crying, and she pushed him away and ran from the tent, hearing, in English, "Annie –NO!" just as she realized she wasn't covered –_he does fear their reactions_ - and wheeled around back into the tent. Fortunately, no one had seen her; she grabbed at the crumpled cover robe from where he had tossed it earlier and in her anger and frustration got tangled. He tried to help her with it; she pushed him away and tried again, hearing the fabric rip slightly, which was satisfying but not very helpful; she'd somehow mistaken an armhole for the neck hole. Through her tears and rage as she flailed around in the fabric she caught a glimpse of his face and realized that he was now trying very hard not to laugh. She heard a few more stitches pull out of a seam as his bemused expression angered her even more, but the truth was, she was completely stuck and now couldn't even see, one arm sticking straight up like the Statue of Liberty, the other trapped against her chest He managed to get her untangled enough to see again and now, he wasn't even trying to hide his amusement. It was a smile she had seen, and loved, so many times before that it disarmed her even more than the tangled robe, and against her own mood, she began to laugh. The relaxation helped to loosen her limbs and he managed to pull the hated garment off of her again, throwing it aside. As he was never one to lose an advantage, no matter how small, she found that the next thing tangled around her was Eyal himself, who managed to land a quick and somewhat sloppy kiss on her lips, unlike his usual beautifully executed romantic moves, and the novelty was appealing despite herself; she still pushed him away, but couldn't completely reject him; one part of her only wanted to see more of his smiling face and flashing dark eyes, and she felt the rationalizations begin, no different in substance than those of any beaten woman in a tenement in a major city. He could be the devil himself but she was alone with him in the middle of a vast, unknown and deadly desert. Whatever his game, her survival – and, with a rush of adrenalin at the thought, that of her baby depended in large part on his desire to protect her. Even so, she couldn't stop herself from making another small push against him as he drew closer; he grabbed her hand and kissed her fingers. She pulled away her hand, perhaps an instant too late for best effect, but he got the message and let her go, instead maintaining his distance but touching her cheek with his fingers, just looking at her. It was not a controlling touch, just one keeping them in contact. For a long moment she searched his eyes and face, seemingly finding only warmth and care and concern – no, she had to be precise if she were going to make any sense out of this – finding only love in his expression. Finally he spoke. " I know there is nothing I can say to make this right between us," he said, after a long time. "Nothing I can say or do." She broke down his words, wondering if it was just a another variety of rationalization. "Nothing I _can_ say". Did that mean there were other things that he could tell her, things that would make this "right"? She thought back to the time on the plateau in the moonlight. It seemed obvious that no one could be listening. But was she right about that? Could a parabolic microphone or similar device have been monitoring them even then, radiating their words to some listening post where her "blasphemy", unpunished by him, would destroy something supposedly more important than the two of them? Did satellites have secret new audio technology? "I know this life is much harsher than what we knew before. And it has made me harsher, as well. Even Red tells me I have overreacted, that this is not to my credit and has disturbed the other women and been a poor example to the men. I … " He paused, then went forward with greater quickness. "I forgot what a delicate flower you are, and how hard it is to thrive in the desert, to have been transplanted here. You know I have always loved flowers of all kinds." What? Now was the time for botany? Was he going to share a long-lost dream of being a florist? There was nothing in their past indicating a great love of flowers on his part. But maybe the lie was to alert her to listen. If he wasn't just playing on her emotions anyway he could. "They are what I miss most here, in this environment. I think of the tulips of spring … they can be transplanted too, but need to be coaxed to bloom, to have coolness, not fire, to thrive. I want you to bloom here, Noor, and I promise to be – I swear to Allah to be … cooler in my reactions. " His fingers left her cheek and settled over her heart before sliding farther down, to cup against her belly. "And to be better at helping you bloom. Even if you are as far from your natural environment as a Dutch tulip. Especially now. If you'll let me."

Dutch tulips.

_Amsterdam. _

Where she had shot him. Because it had been the only way she could find – or more specifically, Auggie could find - to save him. She winced at the thought of Auggie and for a moment, her mind and heart flew back to Langley - what did they know of what had happened to her? Would she ever see any of them again?

Amsterdam. She remembered that special gun in her hand, of taking aim, knowing that even blanks could sometimes kill - especially at such close range - and she fired. The risk was worth it, the consequences without the risk otherwise unimaginable.

Or was introducing that thought to her now just a clever way of making her think he was not the jihadi he seemed? Of pulling her down to his level?

"I will consider what you have said," she answered, finally. She refrained from adding "And what you have done." He nodded. "And if you are promising to be "cooler" with me, than the same goes for Laylah and Hejra as well. You will not harm any of us. Not that way and not any way."

"Agreed."

"Swear it, by Allah."

"I swear it by Allah, I will not harm any of you. Not in that terrible way or in any way." He looked at her, his dark eyes ardent, seemingly utterly sincere.

She nodded slightly. So now she was demanding – and on some level, accepting – oaths to Allah as proof of his good will. She picked up the hated covering robe and took a long moment to straighten it out and make sure she could get it on without entangling herself again. And even stranger, for once she was glad of it; at that moment, she liked closing herself off within it, as if shutting a door against him, until she could think it all through again alone, tulips, oaths, and all.


	14. A Decision

Laylah's eyes were questioning, just the slightest lift of her dark brows. Yet Annie knew the meaning. If only she could read Eyal with such sureness. It was meant to be her night. Would she take her proper place? She had spent the intervening time thinking it all through, again and again, angry at her own indecisiveness, at her inability to break it all into something intelligible. Some spy she was turning out to be. It felt as if all her abilities were in abeyance, tamed by the desert, her essential captivity, maybe even the hormones sweeping through her body. That word sent an anxiety through her. She'd been a fool; every other female agent worth her salt chose a more permanent method of birth control, implants or IUDs but no, she'd kept on with the pills. Was there some part of her that was conflicted over her family vs career choices?

Easy, Annie. This is not the inner argument you need to be having right now. It's much too late, in any case, she told herself.

Laylah was still looking at her with a frozen look of pleasant inquiry. She'd made her point – he was apparently remorseful, she had not rushed back to his arms, but she was no closer to believing the "Amsterdam Explanation" as she was framing it in her mind than when he had first started chatting about tulips. If she pushed it into strict spycraft terms, and asked herself what she would do to another for the "greater good" or to protect them from themselves, she was pretty flexible on that subject. She had shot the blanks at Eyal; she could imagine herself taking him down with a shot to the leg to keep him from doing something deadly dangerous; she had to admit that she had nearly gotten him killed by tying him to a headboard. It had seemed a good idea at the time. But that was not a good mental image to help her coolly analyze whether or not she should go to him tonight; she still remembered those moments even though they seemed to belong to another life, as if that Eyal and that Annie were still waiting to consummate that moment somehow, somewhere, along with the couple they had been in Santa Margarita, nearly uniting. In Israel they had finally joined as lovers; here they had joined as a married pair of a kind.

She entered the tent. It was dim; he had gone to bed early, perhaps doubting that she would come to him, which of course had her immediately doubting her decision. She heard him moving in the bedding and saw the bright glint of his eyes in the light of the sole small glass lantern. Well, she was here now. With what she hoped was some grace she removed her outer covering and slid in beside him, keeping her eyes averted, hoping he would see it as being coy, not being confused and doubtful. It was only by a careful censoring of every other thought that she could do this; she hoped he would say or do nothing that might derail her. The only clear thing was that she did miss him, physically certainly, but something more, the energy of their skin together, even if just lying side by side. But could that work again? Should she even want it to?

He shifted to make room for her – no, to make enough room for her that she could be beside him and yet not be touching him, not yet, not if she didn't want to. She settled down gingerly on the pillow. He turned on his side toward her but still kept his distance, and she wasn't sure if she liked that or not. Neither of them spoke. She could, if she wanted, also turn on her side, away from him, and let all the initiative be on him; she had merely shown up. That didn't seem right or fair, and while she was annoyed at herself for considering "right" or "fair" in regard to this man, who had had no considerations of right or fair for her, she couldn't escape it. This could go very badly, she thought, wishing she had waited, or been strong enough to simply rule out ever returning willingly to his side.

Finally he spoke, softly, but with perfect clarity. "Are you here out of any fear of me, or some sense that you'd best placate me? Then go, though I don't want you to, but please, I will never trouble you about it or ask this of you again. Any tie that we've made here – that I've imposed on you – that's broken, since... You are not compelled to do – anything." She laughed, surprising herself, but it was ridiculous.

"It's not so simple as that. I am alone in the desert with you carrying our child. "

"Or course not," he amended. "But this, you returning to me - is more than anything I have any right to ask, or enjoy." Since she wasn't jumping up and running away, he moved to put his hands on her shoulders, kneading gently. He was gentle, but though nearly healed, that area was still slightly tender to her. She ciouldn't stop the instinctive recoil; with a look of horror he pulled back and scrambled up and out of the bedding, one hand to his head. "I forgot," he said, spinning around to face her. "I do that to you and then I _forget._" She got up herself. She was at a loss for what to say. She certainly couldn't go "Oh, it's okay, honey, don't worry about it." But what she did come up with wasn't much better.

"Let's have tea." Laylah, of course, perfect Laylah, had laid out such things for him; the brass carafe was still warm. Annie kneeled and poured it out into two metal-bound glasses and held one up to him. He took it and sipped it and sat down on his haunches beside her.

"Mm, sage," she said.

"Very healthy, supposedly."

"It tastes different than it smells," she said. That could be a metaphor for life, she thought. Things don't always match across the senses.

"That's true," he agreed. Annie drank some more. It brought back a memory.

"The first time I had sage tea, I was eighteen and on my gap year between high school and college traveling on my own in Turkey."

"Bold of you."

"It was in the back of a rug shop. They always serve you something."

"The eighteen year old blonde American girl? You are lucky it wasn't something much stronger than sage tea."

"I did have to leave that shop a little quickly without buying anything. What about you? Where were you when you were eighteen?"

"Me? Well of course, I was doing forced labor on the kibbutz, picking fruit, playing guitar, my hair was down to here on my back. Actually, I was not really playing guitar. I found it was quite sufficient for my purposes to just carry it around and maybe tighten a string now and again."

"And the girls would flock around just the same?"

"Something like that." His smile at that memory was very genuine. Long hair, a young, scar-free body, his prop guitar and the sensual atmosphere of dozens of young men and women working together in the orchards.

"Imagine if we'd met then. What would that have been like? I could have as easily come to Israel as Turkey."

"There would have been no need for you to go there," he said, quickly dismissing Israel from the picture. "We were all young and eager to get away to someplace more exotic to us – Cyprus and Greece were very popular. One summer I did go to Greece and earned enough in the fields to keep me in the islands all summer. You could certainly have been in Greece. But not picking vegetables. The American girls always had enough money from Daddy back home to avoid messing up their nails in the dirt."

"But I'm not your typical American. So there I am, working in the sun, picking …. "- she needed a fruit with a slightly erotic quality to it - "Picking melons. And I've noticed this bare-chested Greek-looking guy with long hair and a guitar working nearby…."

"And your hair is loose, and even blonder than usual, bleached by the hot Greek sun … and you have been very diligent, a very good worker, at least for an American, and you are carrying a big box of the melons you have picked and I see you struggling with it and come up behind you and take the weight of the box from you." She put down her tea and moved to put her back to him. He shifted slightly to be more behind her. His arms slid around her. "And I say, here that is much too heavy for you, and you thank me and let me take the box, which I immediately put aside, and say, it's hot, let's take a break and gp to the taverna for some stuffed grape leaves …."

"And I have no work ethic so I say, ooh, yes, will they have creamy tzatziki sauce?"

"Oh yes, cool and minty tzatziki and some _ou_zo…. And conveniently, the path to the taverna goes just past where I am staying…"

"With a hammock strung between two olive trees…"

"Exactly…."

Annie lay awake in the dark. She was certain he was awake as well. She wasn't sure if this counted as a reunion exactly – Grown-up Eyal and Grown-up Annie would have to carve out their own ground later. But the fantasy had done its work. It almost felt as if she had been truly away, retreating into a mythical landscape where neither of them had any complications, just sun, sea, and plenty of lust. She heard him move, pour himself more tea, now gone cool, and lift the covered lid where it was Laylah's habit to leave a bit of food for them, presumably to bolster their strength. He chuckled and she felt him nudge her side.

"Look."

She laughed. Maybe it was a sign – of what, she didn't know but she'd take it as positive for the moment. Because on the tray was a row of stuffed grape leaves, and yes, the local variant of tzatziki.


	15. Devices

She did not understand the changes of camp, or why they would stay in one place for a long time and then suddenly move to another. This shift happened as suddenly as any of them. They were in motion for several days, a long trek, only part of the camp, Eyal and Red and a few others. The vehicles were sent off with the rest – for the first time, all of their possessions were loaded on camels and a few horses. Eyal spent much of the time riding alongside her, pointing out the geography, anything to alleviate the monotony. His sharp eyes honed in on distant horizons, mountains -"Those mountains look close, Noor, but if you ever tried to reach them, they are four or five days away, eighty six miles." , or indicating ridges just barely visible until the sun sinking behind them brought them into focus. A scorpion skittering along a dune was cause for excitement, one of the few creatures of this place.

"Beyond that, there are salt flats. Marsh arabs live there, fishing, using flat boats in the reeds."

"Marsh arabs?"

"The Rub al Khali and its edges hold many secrets. You will see one soon," he added, softly.

The last two treks they covered at night, under starlight, sticking to the hard outcroppings of stone even when easier terrain was nearby, she suspected to reduce any trace of their passage. It was cooler than traveling during the day but Annie suspected it was to try to evade any possible observation by satellite or other surveillance; whether or not the attempt was successful was anyone's guess. In the distance, toward morning, she saw a wedge-shaped area of fuzzy dim light. Eyal called her attention to it. "There."

"What is it?"

"You'll see soon. Do you know, if we were to keep on traveling in a straight line on this path, we would eventually encounter Paris? See those stars?

"Somehow I don't think this is going to be like Paris."

"You may be surprised," he said, mildly.

She was. As they drew closer, the dim wedge of light revealed itself as a cave. It seemed small but then grew as they approached, the opening rising thirty feet or more into the air. She looked at him, seeing him smiling back at her. Laylah and Hejira, somewhat awkwardly paired together on a camel, spoke excitedly. Annie frowned. Had Laylah said something like "Good shopping!"?

They approached. The opening was guarded lightly – but of course they had been observed for miles by now, or were expected by some other way.

Inside, the cavern reached up into the cliffs and extended beyond the lights into the distance. In front of them was a town – small buildings and houses, the smell of cooking fires, a mix of electric lights and candle light or oil. It was straight out of H. Rider Haggard, a lost or at least long-concealed city; at the edges, she could see some repurposed carved tombs. It was just awakening with the dawn. Several men came forward to greet their small party, to take their camels and horses, and to respectfully guide them through the tangled lanes – Laylah was right, there was a small bazaar - and up a stone staircase. Annie could still not get a sense of the limit of the area, and she could see gates and tunnels that seemed to lead still deeper into the rock. The temperature was cool.

The place where she and Eyal were led with some ceremony and pride was a room carved out of the rock, with a balcony and balustrade just outside. Laylah and Hejira were sent with the other women to another chamber. This time, as Eyal and Annie walked up the private stair case, it almost felt as if they were being escorted to a luxurious room in a strange boutique hotel. Within, there was an unexpected treasure - a brass bed.

"Would you look at this?" Eyal said, entering the room, which was atmospherically lit with a couple of small electric lamps augmented with a big candle. He sat on the edge of it, experimentally.

"I can't believe I am so happy to see a bed. I don't mind the carpets and pillows, but - !"

"I don't know if Laylah and Hejira have even seen one before," Eyal commented. She sat down beside him. It would not be "her" night – hers had just passed on the trek, if that counted - but there was a look in his eye.

"Hm. Perhaps we should test it out first. Make sure there are no sharp springs poking through or other unexpected hazards which might be an unwelcome surprise to them."

"An excellent idea… For _their_ safety and comfort."

"It would be irresponsible of us to do otherwise. We know about things like beds." They nodded seriously at each other, suppressed bursting out laughing, and embarked on a thorough testing of the bed.

Cuddling, Annie realized she was enjoying herself. The breach between them seemed healed over though she didn't fool herself that it couldn't turn raw in a moment. But she was feeling pleasure, not just sexual delight – his consistent attention and her hormones seemed to be conspiring make sure of that – but the kind of daily joy she thought was a marital fantasy. In an underground cavern. In the middle of the desert. On a brass bed that looked like it had been meant for a Parisian boudoir.

Their rest wasn't uninterrupted for long. Someone came for him. "You rest," he told her, stroking her cheek. "I will be back after some time." He gathered some things together to take with him. "

"You're leaving the cavern?"

"No, but it is big enough I'd rather not come back for something forgotten. But I must go now." He left with unusual hurry. Annie stretched out on the bed, which was delightful. Her gaze fell on a matching dressing table, which was where Eyal had been assembling whatever gear was essential for his somewhat mysterious errand. Speaking of gear. Annie sat up. On the dressing table was an item that she had not seen before. She got up and went to see it. It was a GPS, displaying its last reading though that must have been from when they were outside - it was unlikely to be able to penetrate into the cavern. She memorized the numbers, wishing for paper, but where would she conceal that? It was set out so obviously - could he possibly have meant for her to see it? Meant for her to know so precisely where this unusual complex was located? And if he did ... No. I won't go there, she told herself, knowing it was useless even as she tried to hang on to that soothing sense of happiness she had experienced only a few minutes ago. But now the questions, the tension, rushed back.

When he returned some hours later, in front of Laylah and Hejira Eyal gravely counted out some coins and bills, including, to Annie's surprise, a few U.S. dollars. "Let Laylah do the bargaining," he instructed her. "She'll know the prices of things. If you need more, come back to me. But that should be enough to start."

The cavern was organized into little lanes with workshops and stalls. The selection was not extensive and most of it was practical and dull, looking like cheap stock from China, but there were a few embroidered garments and accessories. Despite herself, Annie was enchanted with a simple pair of painted leather shoes. She knew Eyal would laugh over her managing to find a new pair of shoes, not exactly her usual style but lovely in their own way, and she looked forward to that moment of sharing the purchase with him.

At the edge of the display table she saw it - an old cell phone that had clearly seen better days. Yet there it was, an isolated little bit of technology in between some tooled brass trays and knickknacks. Was it even for sale, or could someone have forgotten it – and perhaps left it charged? The shopkeeper was busy with Laylah and Hejira. Annie palmed it, her heart pounding; it was a simple steal, but this was the land of sharia law and chopped off hands for transgressions. Yet it lifted her spirits. The small bazaar was surprisingly busy; for a supposedly "secret" underground city, this one seemed to be thriving. They looked over everything, maximizing the experience, debating the merits of everything. They returned to the rooms with their purchases. Alone for a few minutes, Annie toyed with the phone trying to get it to work, and looked at the single dollar bill she had saved. Seeing the familiar images on the bill made her want to weep. Whatever changes had occurred, she still wanted this all to end with going home. The cell phone seemed to be part of that life, and could be her ticket away if she could get through on it. Most immediately, she had to find some place to conceal it. Annie was to be with him again; she knew she could not keep it on her and finally went to join Laylah and Hejira as they played with their new purchases, and she managed to conceal it in the secondary room that was serving as "women's quarters".

The next morning, it was gone. Either Hejira or Laylah must have taken it – unless Mrs. Red had found some convenient excuse to do a search. Annie felt ill all day – and it wasn't just morning sickness this time. How could she have been so stupid? The risk could not have been worth it. She'd tried powering it up, of course it was dead, of course it didn't come with a charger, on closer examination, there wasn't even a card in it. She might as well have strung it with beads and worn it as a necklace.

"Noor, come with me for a moment." It was Eyal, getting her from the women's room where she was just sliding on her new shoes. That had been a much more worthwhile acquisition. "Those are very pretty," he said, smiling.

"You know me and shoes," she said, hoping to sound normal.

"I do indeed. I suspect these are a much better bargain than your usual brands. But one day you'll have the opportunity for more of those, too."

They were alone now in the nearly-private "Marital Room". He drew the curtains over the balcony, concealing them from view but probably not from being overheard. Annie sat on the edge of the bed. Was a bit of afternoon delight on his mind? She didn't think so. He seemed to be being very carefully kind to her, and that could be the prelude to anything.

There was a small folding chair opposite the bed, in the old Savonarola style of two arcs which folded together, connected with a leather seat. He sat down in it, waited for her to look at him questioningly. He took out the cell phone and a palm-sized pebble from the cave walls, placed the phone on the floor, and smashed it with one clear, precise blow. To her amazement and shame, tears sprang to her eyes.

"Did you buy this or steal it?" he asked softly, still in neutral, friendly tones.

"I stole it," she answered, so softly he frowned, apparently genuinely not hearing her.

"What?"

"I stole it," she said again, more clearly, hating a tiny catch in her voice from the dryness in her throat.

He nodded, looking at the little pile of wreckage. "I thought so. I thought someone would have made it their business to tell me if you had purchased it."

"I can tell you which vendor," she said, hopelessly.

"It doesn't matter. If it comes up we will take care of it."

"They won't chop off my hands or …."

"I'd like to see them try." She wouldn't. "Don't worry." He came and sat down beside her, to her surprise gathering her to him. "It must have felt like a little bit of home to you," he said, consolingly. "Something familiar from back there, from those old times." She nodded against his chest, where she was sniveling. "Easy, easy. It's the baby, all that, it makes you impulsive, emotional. It's all right. I'm not angry. And you must remember, I've never liked cell phones much."

That made her laugh. It also seemed rather daring of him – all of their cell phone conversations and arguments had been in the context of missions. She was delighted to have him reference that, no matter how obliquely.

"You must have known it was very unlikely to work here!"

"I know, I thought maybe someone had left it by mistake … or I'd find a charger at another stall or … I don't know. It was silly." He continued to hold her, patting her back, enduring the increasingly damp spot she was making against his chest.

'It's all right. I got you something myself from the bazaar, something your sister would also approve of, I'm sure – didn't you tell me she would be "Martha Stewart of Arabia" in your place? Here. "

Feeling she was being distracted like a beloved but occasionally naughty child, he handed her a small embroidered bag. Inside, she found an embroidery hoop, threads, a small scissors, pincushion and other supplies. "Many of the women like to embroider and it's an ancient tradition – women here have recorded important events in their lives in their stitchery for millennia. I thought it might give you something to do, make things for the baby …. Laylah can show you some stitches." Annie stared at the bag. It was very pretty, but did he really intend for her to get that domestic? Now that she was officially"male" in some contexts at least? But he seemed genuinely hopeful that she would like the present. All Annie could think of was that she'd better not embroider on anything light colored because she was sure to be sticking her fingers constantly – she could hardly sew on a button or do a hem, being much better and more experienced at sewing up wounds, where bloodstains were expected. Well, her stitchery on that could probably stand to improve, too. "See," he was saying, digging deeper in the bag. "Lovely silk threads. We'll get you more when you need them. " Briefly, her spirits rose – could there be anything else in that bag, more useful, oh, say, tracking devices or weaponry or some secret message? She'd tear open the pincushion at first opportunity. But there was nothing in his manner to make her think this pretty bag concealed some spy treasure.

"You know, we will not always be living in a tent in the desert, Noor, or in an underground town. This is to train and teach me the ways I should have learned as a child on holidays. One day I will give to you a splendid house, a little palace, for you and our children. We will have holidays in Dubai, or Qatar, or Egypt. And you'll have new technology then, not just embroidery thread, you'll have another cell phone, one I'll buy for you." She found herself sniveling again at that. That was clearly the hormones. She didn't want a cell phone, she wanted a permanent means of escape, her love for Eyal not withstanding – the phone was just a symbol, all too symbolic this time. "Easy, my darling. With the baby, it's natural that sometimes you might just want to be back where everything is familiar, where you can call your sister and chat. Isn't that right? Sometimes you do want to go back where "home" once was?"  
"I do," she admitted softly, not even trying to say the right placating thing or caring who listened; she was probably seen as less of a potential threat, if anyone was still analyzing her as one, if she broke down in a "natural", "womanly" way now and again. "But I always want you to be back there with me, too." That was not an admission she really wanted to make, but it slipped out.

"Oh Noor," he said, and hugged her to him more tightly and stroked her hair, kissing her forehead. "Everything you desire may one day come to pass." He must have thought he'd gone a bit too far with that. "Inshallah, even the United States may one day be a lawful enough place for us to visit."

He had been away for many hours. The light was best in the bigger bedroom, and she was determined to show she appreciated his gift somehow and so was working on embroidering a pair of velveteen baby booties. She was mentally pretending she was undercover as a seamstress. The velvet was black and so would not show any of her accidental finger stabbings, which she managed to do even with the thimble.

When he entered, he seemed glad to see her there. His eyes were tired and he seemed tense, but his smile for her was warm – maybe he really did take a perverse pleasure in seeing her occupied in enforced domestic crafts. He inspected the little booties – they looked too small, even for a baby - and put them on his fingertips and made them walk against her thigh. That led to some friendly kisses and suddenly, something a bit more serious. He pulled off his robe and flung it down with what seemed like unnecessary force. Something caught in it clacked against the stone floor. He looked at her. Nothing more than that. Just a look. Almost a "did you hear that?" type of expression on his face. But then they were distracted by other activities. He dozed. She stretched, and at her slightest move, he spoke.

"Hand me my garment, would you?"

Annie slid out of bed without thinking, then realized at the same moment the strangeness of his request - he did not put her to fetching things for him, much more the other way around, especially with the baby on the way and especially after a delightful time spent in each other's arms – and she recalled the sound when he took it off. She gathered up the garment carefully, trying to find what had made the odd clack against the stone. She felt the ball chain in her fingers before she saw what was hung from it. Behind her, she heard him start snoring – an unusual sound from him as well and could he possibly have fallen asleep so fast? He was not exactly unfit and allergy prone, or easily exhausted after a single session of lovemaking. She glanced at him; his eyes were shut.

For the third time in their short stay in these caverns she found herself at least momentarily possessing technology. She looked at the plastic object in her hand once more to be utterly positive, stared at the small digital screen. The number changed one digit as she held it, making an almost inaudible click. Then, as if she had not seen it, had not touched it, she bunched up his robe and tangled the chain in it in a way that would seem she had missed it and went back to the bed and nudged him with the bundle. "Here you go," she said. He seemed to reawaken, murmur thanks as she pressed against him his balled-up robe and the ball chain with the dangling radiation dosimeter he had been wearing.


	16. Destruction

On a scrap piece of fabric, as if practicing groups of French knots, Annie carefully noted the number from the dosimeter she had seen on the display, right beneath the other series of French knots which captured the number she had seen on the GPS. Record one's life, indeed. She ran her finger over the knots. That morning, she had been convinced that Eyal had intended her to do just that - had given her the means to make a "diary" of sorts, deliberately. Then she thought that was ridiculous, he was merely trying to keep her occupied. She went back over his words again and again. It was useless. She could make a case either way. And so far at least, Eyal had been careful not to reveal the dosimeter or the GPS again, and she vacillated on those incidents too - the sheer number of apparent "accidents" seemed telling, but how could she be sure? Each day he was gone for many hours, apparently to some destination much deeper inside the mountain. On one of their shopping expeditions Annie had made sure to lead Laylah and Hejira as astray as possible, but all she learned was that there were indeed many tunnels - but none seemed to be guarded and no one seemed to care if they wandered the more "residential" lanes far from the bazaar.

They stayed in the caverns for several weeks, then one day Eyal announced that they were leaving and the next night, in the darkness, they slipped away, repeating the method of their arrival but veering off into another direction. They kept up the night marches for a handful of days, then were rejoined by the rest of their original group and set up another semi-permanent camp. There again, Eyal was away for much of the time, and some new faces, apparent trainees of some type, joined the others.

When she heard the helicopters, for one brief moment her heart lifted. Rescue … Eschewing covering up in the camp which was nearly empty of men anyway, she darted outside and saw the two helos approaching. They were sleek, of a modern design, quiet but not as quiet as some of the US stealth helicopters, but some sort of noise suppression technology was being employed, and they were on the small side, and she didn't recognize the models or even likely nation of origin – though if she had to take a guess, she would have thought Saudi or Israeli.

Red emerged from his tent and shouted at her to get back inside – but she wasn't sure if that was just because of her uncovered state, as he looked genuinely alarmed. Several of the other women dropped what they were doing and pushed past her, seeking the safety of the tent as she rushing away from it. A couple of the youths had stayed behind from whatever this very important thing was that had pulled away Eyal and almost everyone else. Red obviously shared her concern about the source of these copters because he rushed back inside and came out armed, one of the boys with him. Annie stayed visible – if this was rescue, and was for her, they had to see her.

Which, apparently they had, but she was rethinking the "Rescue" scenario as the initial gunfire seemed to be aimed directly at her. She ran and was aware as she fled that Red and the youth with him were both down on the ground, dead or injured. She dove behind a small rocky wall where they had tethered up some of the animals. They flew over and were obviously coming back around. She ran to Red and snatched up his gun; he was alive but badly wounded, bleeding from his abdomen, the youth beside him dead. Laylah was trying to haul him in to the false safety of the tent, and Annie assisted. He began jabbering to the other boy inside, who went to a long low chest and opened it up, bringing out something that Annie recognized at once – a Stinger missile launcher. The youth looked confused by it, he really was no more than twelve or thirteen. Acting fast, Annie grabbed the borrowed Arabic dictionary and pressed it down onto Red's wound, the weight of it might help keep him alive even if they could not keep the pressure on his wound as they fought the attackers.

"Laylah! Get the boy to put pressure on his wounds – you help me!" She could hear the copters coming back. She'd fortunately read how this armament was operated, and it would have to do. She found a shell and rammed it into place, and with a handy decorative knife, slit the tent so she had an opening to fire through . Red had waved away his helper to go assist in maneuvering the launching tube. Annie knew she'd have one shot before they would zone in on her, if they had not done so already. Through the slit she could see her target, calculated her shot, and fired, landing back on her ass and bringing the tube down hard on the youth assisting them. But the explosion she heard was very satisfying, and when she scrambled up to see what was happening, she saw only one copter in the air, retreating. She grabbed up the automatic weapons Red and the youth had been using and ran toward the spot where the copter had gone down. There was nothing but a tangled ruin which instantly exploded into more flames as she watched. There were no apparent survivors, and she looked at it dispassionately. This is bad, she thought. I'm not feeling anything but in all likelihood, three or four or more people inside that just died by my hand, and I 'm standing here ready to shoot any survivors. She had had to kill before, but not in this quantity, not so personally. Yet if she hadn't, she would be dead. Could it have been a bungled rescue? Not likely. Blonde women with no head covering had to be pretty scant on the ground in this part of the world. At a minimum, they had seen her, known she was Western, and they had fired on her. The other copter was a tiny dot now but she could still just make out its sound. It did not seem to be immediately returning, which was a very good thing. Because Annie could not shake the feeling that it had not been the camp that had been targeted, but just her.


	17. Death

The first hint that something was terribly wrong was a thin wisp of dark smoke on the horizon. Their training exercises halted. Someone tried to reach Red by radio. Nothing. There was a scramble into the vehicles and a race back to camp, wondering what they would find. As they grew closer, the billowing smoke grew blacker. Eyal felt his heart go dead in his chest. Drone strike?

Nothing improved as they entered the camp. The women were around, and wailing. He spotted Hejira among them but not Annie or Laylah; then he saw a clot of women around a woman on the ground; it was Laylah and as he focused in on her, he saw her move slightly. But Annie, who would be expected to be right there, right by her, was not. Others were helping Red, who was unconscious and obviously badly injured. A quick look told Eyal he was beyond what he could readily help, and he gave the order to contact their benefactor and call in an evacuation helicopter. He went to Laylah; her eyes were open and his fingers briefly touched a wound on her head; she hit it on something, probably falling from the concussion of an explosion. Her pupils were reacting to light, he noted, relieved. He squeezed her hand but didn't delay asking. "Annie? Noor," he corrected. "Where's Noor? What happened? Where is she?"

"I don't know…" Laylah managed.

"Was she in the tent?"

"I don't know, I don't remember…"

"_Was she in our tent_?" He dropped Laylah's hand, realizing he was hurting her.

"I don't know," Laylah answered, whispering, tears springing to her eyes. He forced himself to pat her hand now, smile encouragingly for an instant.

His own tent was demolished, what wasn't missing entirely was burned to the ground, a hot fire that had to have been a missile. He stood there. Nothing in that tent had survived. The immolation was so thorough that even bones might not make it through. Everything was burned to blackness. Wait. There, against something that could be – probably was - …. His breathing had changed to quick panting, almost at the rate of his heart. That was not a burned-black fragment, but a fragment of black clothing, the bottom hem of a covering robe, with a line of black-on-black embroidery. Annie's hated covering robe, the one he'd peeled off of her.

There were many more wounded. Someone tugged at him for help. He ignored them. His attention was drawn by the billowing smoke some distance beyond the camp. He hopped into one of the vehicles and raced there. On the ground, he recognized the remains of a high-tech helicopter. Literally recognized the remains. He had been introduced to these, had flown in them, pride of the dark, secret fleet, each one worth tens of millions of dollars, fast and deadly. This one had been most deadly for its own crew. He watched the smoke rising up. They did not send these out needlessly. They would not have sent one out – more likely a pair of them – when all the men were absent from the camp, when an attack would be likely to only take out women and children, unless they wanted to take out women and children.

No, one woman in particular. He swallowed, the realization turning his intestines to writhing snakes inside of him. The only one that represented a risk, a danger. Which by his own actions, by responding to her words to him in the desert that night so wildly, he had probably only underlined her as an unacceptable risk to everything, someone who could inspire in him irrational actions, even potentially damage his relations with the rest of the jihadis or distract him from his goal. A risk that was intolerable given what was at stake.

What didn't matter at all to him now. How could he have been such a fool? How could he have ever really risked _her_? But he didn't mean to! The cry rose up in him like a little boy. But I didn't mean to flush the goldfish, Daddy ! It just happened. He really didn't think anything would happen – not this bad, not like this, that there would be a protection, that his love for her would prevent any disaster, any real harm from coming to either of them. And this when he had spent most of his adult life bringing real harm to dozens if not hundreds of others.

There was no one with him to witness him dropping to his knees and bellowing like a wounded bull, nor to hear what he cried out to high heaven.

Or what he swore to do.


	18. Escape

A camel would never be her favorite mode of transportation, but at the moment, it was the one she had. When the beast had startled her as she gazed at the wreckage of the helicopter, she had vowed that if it would let her on its back, she would take her chance. The last few camps had been at the edge of the desert; while nothing ever got cool, she knew they were closer to the coast – Eyal had even made mention of it, that they were about fifty miles inland and that they were in an area of comparatively abundant water. She had her basic directions from the sun, but that did her no good – the camel had its own compass. Her inner voice – or her espionage training finally waking up – firmly announced '_flee the scene_!', and at least the beast seemed to know where it wanted to go.

Without thinking, she had grabbed at its harness, and it let her scramble onto it, a minor miracle since the animals were rarely so cooperative. She doubted anyone would be pursuing her. Her captors – for the moment, she included Eyal in that – would be busy enough for some time to come. She didn't want to think about him now, and maybe it was a good thing that the camel had a mind of its own. For all she knew, the camp could have been the second attack site on the list. For a moment she was breathless; that had its own logic, had they wiped out Eyal and the other men, then come to finish up the job at the camp? She'd heard no distant explosions but she had no idea where Eyal and the others had gone, to attack some other place or do training or what. They could have been a hundred miles away, or more, or only minutes distant. She glanced at the horizon, checking briefly in all directions for more smoke, but saw nothing.

Since she had proved she had almost no effect on guiding the camel, she was hoping it was guiding itself to water, more camels, and the people who would accompany both of those things. Drawing into view up ahead was a stand of palm trees which only grew up around reliable sources of water, and as they approached – again, stealth was impossible with a camel she could not steer – she could see people moving about. It was not the oasis they had stopped at before, but was similar.

Annie quickly analyzed her options. Physically, she would not hold up as a local. She had no veil, there was nothing to conceal her westernness except a limited knowledge of Laylah's dialect. She had her weapon concealed in the camel's saddle, but depending on the circumstances, that could be helpful or damning. Her Arabic was near perfect now but combined with her appearance, that could just make her more suspicious. She came up with a paper-thin story that she was with a health survey and her camel had run away with her, separating her from the rest of the team. Now she wished she had kept the smashed cell phone – it would work as a prop, because other than the gun, she had nothing on her that wouldn't be consistent with a tribal woman's gear. Including, she supposed, her obvious baby bump. The camel headed into the oasis. She looked around brightly as if expecting a welcome and assuring that she was no threat. A woman, with a headscarf but bare face, indicating a little less conservative group, looked at her curiously as she filled a jug with water. Annie miscalculated the camel's urgency for water and found herself tumbling off of it as the beast shook her off and began to drink. Oh no, the baby, she thought, automatically. Any child of hers was apparently going to have to learn to hold on tight even while in the womb. It was not exactly the best entrance into the camp but she heard some laughter and it was not a bad thing to enter bringing amusement; it was disarming. She scrambled to her feet, smiling, as if that was quite her usual – or only- method for dismounting.

"Greetings! I need a guide to the coast," she announced, in English, to the smiling and curious onlookers.

Later, Annie sat back against a palm tree trunk and put aside her plate, satisfied. Laylah was a better cook but this meal, in freedom, was unmatchable… though she would have preferred Eyal, her Eyal if he still existed, with her, fleeing with her, returning to their real world. But that was not to be. One of the men at the oasis had offered to guide her to the coast starting early in the morning to what he assured her was a port town where she could sell the camel, pay him, and get a boat ticket. There would also be a phone. While she was worried about the chance of betrayal, she believed she would be safe for the night and then on the move in the early hours of the morning, well before sunrise. She fell into a fitful sleep, seeing the camp, the distress, knowing that she had abandoned good people.

And among them, if he lived, Eyal.


	19. Distraction

The sun was above the ridge now, blazing on their backs; he had chosen that angle as the brightness would conceal them from their targets. With a gesture, he indicated where the other fighters should move, following the plan he had roughed out. His trainees were adapting well to the more advanced techniques he had presented to them, the ones he had withheld from them, until now. The outpost was fairly well defended, but the occupants had been under siege for hours now since their initial pre-dawn attacks and the survivors were realizing they were up against something just a little new. But he himself was growing impatient, tired of crouching behind the fragmented wall that gave some cover. There was no cover for him; staying still just made him realize that more as _thoughts_ began to seep into his head. He was doing this to keep thoughts away, so what was the point? He made another gesture – had to repeat it twice as they did not believe him at first, then just eased himself over the wall and ran across the distance, firing as he went, the others scrambling to follow. His aim was excellent – nothing had impeded that. Sometimes his mind superimposed other figures over the ones he was actually firing at, but they fell down just the same. Silence announced a break in the gunfire. He paused – foolish, no cover at all – and glanced behind him and then back at the now-quiet small building where dust was still rising heavenward from the pocks of the bullets. Dead were behind him and dead were in front of him.

Something was missing from that sequence. Still.

II.

The sheik listened carefully to the voice on the phone. The information was relayed to him as an announcement of a great success, and it was, but he was still troubled. The man Faisal – whom so many had doubted, who had put the sheik's own position under suspicion, since he was the first to accept and confirm the strange facts of the man's birth and his rejection of all things Israeli – was disproving his critics, to say the least. In the last several weeks, since the attack on the camp and the unfortunate death of the American wife who he had initially seemed to dismiss as an inconvenience and a mere responsibility he had to fulfill, but whom he must have truly loved - he had slid into the camp leader role made vacant by Red's injuries and redoubled his work with training the others and had planned and executed several attacks on remote military stations that had been a bit too effective against their local jihadi forces. But this last one had resulted in a dozen deaths and additional injuries of their own, after several previous ones, and this call, while trumpeting the success, had given the sheik a few clues that he did not care for. These losses were avoidable, his informant suggested; they were caused by the recklessness of their leader, who had apparently initiated a dramatic charge which had indeed resulted in the capture of the outpost, but it could have been taken more slowly and safely by other means. He had made it through unwounded; those who died supporting him, obviously, had not. Now the strength of the group was diminished until new recruits could be brought in – who would doubtless learn the same wild tactics.

The sheikh sighed. He had been impressed with Faisal, believed him, liked his coolness coupled with the power to take decisive action, but without unnecessary risk. This was not coolness. And his greatest advantage to them was not as a fighter but his intimate knowledge of Israeli intelligence processes and his ability to predict their moves; the information he had provided when he joined with them had been exceptional and was still leading to successful outcomes for them. If his grief had crazed him, if he didn't recover, he was much less useful, especially if he was throwing away the lives of well-trained jihadis. The sheik had no shortage of passionate suicide-bomber types; it would be a disappointment if Faisal was little better than that, and a waste. He genuinely liked his new 'nephew'. The sheik sat back, contemplating. He did not want the fate of a suicide bomber for Faisal. But, he admitted, in his case, he was a suicide-bomber type who could potentially walk into the main offices of Mossad. Now that was much more interesting, and potentially much more useful.

If he were dead, then that also opened up the possibility of exploiting the image of his wife, something Faisal would be unlikely to allow while he was alive, though perhaps he could be persuaded of the need of it. Casting her as a female American jihadi would have interesting public relations benefits – certainly would result in magazine or newspaper stories, and not just for their self-produced magazines and websites. He thought of the video footage retrieved from the downed helicopter. CNN, Fox, MSNBC, the BBC and Al-Jazeera would eat it up. It was a pity, from a more ideological point of view, that she was not veiled, though it certainly looked more dramatic and striking that way, as she was indeed very beautiful and undeniably American. For general non-news distribution, he could certainly have the video doctored by their media team – it wouldn't do to celebrate her otherwise – by adding a veil or perhaps just adding a soft-focus filter over her face, as was often done these days. Perhaps they could put it just below her eyes, in effect a digital veil. Hm. He liked that term. Modern _and_ modest. And the image of her with the Stinger missile was not very clear, just a glimpse through the slit in the tent – it could be enhanced, but possibly they could also add an automatic weapon to her hands during the sequence where she was standing, watching the helicopter? And do something about those clothes, at least make them more opaque and full.

He made a mental note to find out much more about her, beyond the reports from when she was captured. There might be other media-friendly aspects to her life and past which could be woven into a compelling story to inspire other women, who tended to be more reluctant than the men to go out and spread the necessary carnage. She could even be the face – so to speak, after the addition of that digital veil - of a bold new campaign.

But that was all Plan B. His first hope was that a talk with Faisal would help him come back to his senses, cease being a liability, and fit well into the greater scheme of things. After all, he was family.


	20. Water

It was strange to be within the smell of water after so long in the interior of the Rub Al Khali. Her guide led her and the camel through the last of the desert to the scarcely-more hospitable environment of the salt flats, marshy areas that hummed with insects and hosted birds who nested in the stands of reeds. At the "port" – which consisted of five mudbrick buildings, one whitewashed as the "official" ferry office , and a poorly-maintained pier - she sold her camel and paid her guide. He took her triumphantly to use the "phone" which was a man sitting in the shade on a folding chair against a mudbrick wall, offering his cell phone for use for a fee. Unfortunately, he only had service for local calls. Her guide assured her that there were real phones at the next port, the next destination of the ramshackle ferry that served this remote stretch. Wherever it was going, it had to be closer to home than here, she thought as she climbed aboard the hot-smelling boat.

There was a reason for that hot smell, they discovered an hour or so later, when a loud noise and an unnerving tremble shot through the ship. The boiler exploded, raining down debris as the ship took on water. His word, kismet, ran through her mind as she kicked off of the side railing.

The water was fairly salty against her lips. She wasn't quite as buoyant as she would be in the Mediterranean, and certainly not as buoyant as she would be in the Dead Sea in Israel, where bathers could float along reading the newspaper, the water was so relatively solid. Eyal must have swum in the Dead Sea, though they had never discussed it. If she ever saw him again, and if he turned out to still be Israeli, she would ask him about it.

Actually, she thought, to distract herself as she forced her way through the water, remembering Eyal beside her on the beach in Israel, all of this water was a nice contrast to the fty sandy environment she had lived in for what, almost eight months? Meaning she was now about seven months along. After all, she had yearned for a shower and a bathtub that wasn't as small as the copper tub that Laylah had filled for her. She felt a pang at thinking of Laylah, who had assisted her so much on that last chaotic day and whom she had left behind; she had to remind herself that to Laylah, there was no need for escape. She might even, assuming he still lived, be very happy to once again be the chief wife to her handsome husband.

At least it was a calm day, Annie thought, grateful. She had reached the shallows now, and turned back to look at the flaming wreck of the ferry a few hundred yards offshore. She estimated that they had made it about ten miles up the coast before the blast. Catching her breath, she dove back into the water to assist a woman flailing her way toward shore, fighting to keep a child above the water. A small fishing boat was dragging out other survivors.

It was the next day and her third interview. "I'm Canadian," she repeated, in French as that was the language she thought would be safest – widely spoken in the Middle East, but with plenty of acceptable variations in accents that would not undermine her story immediately. Local authorities had finally emerged from out of nowhere by speedboat and SUV to gather up survivors and bodies; as the sole foreigner, she was getting special attention.

"But you have no identification and you are dressed like that," the officer said, his contempt for her costuming apparent. Though she hated the covering garments, they did offer an advantage over the street-wise "I Dream of Jeanie" look she was sporting.

"I was taking photographs of tribal cultures for an article I'm doing on the most remote regions of the earth." She couldn't use the health survey story with him as he might be informed of such things in his region; she hoped the inconsistency would not be revealed. "I was wearing local garb to make my subjects, mostly women, feel more comfortable.

"For what magazine exactly?"

"LEntrée," she said, the first word coming to her mind that might make sense as the title of an edgy travel magazine. Did he have Internet access? Could he check? "It's a new magazine on remote travel. My story is slated to be the cover of the first issue. But I've lost my camera, my phone, and all my notes." She had told most of this story to the other two men who had interviewed her. This one looked no more impressed. All in all, it was feeling more and more like her experience after being captured at the border, an experience she did not wish to repeat.

A phone rang in the other room. Her interrogator looked annoyed, but got up to answer it, sweeping a few items on the desk into a drawer, locking it and the door behind him. Annie flew into action, looking for anything she could use; one of those items was a cell phone. The lock on the drawer was easy to pick. As she got to the precious item, she could just hear him talking, obviously trying to keep his voice low but it rose with frustration. "This woman is a terrorist! I cannot keep her here! They'll be …" His voice dropped again. She turned on the phone. Only one bar. She thought quickly, dialed the number she thought would take the least pings to reach, spoke quickly putting her name first in case the signal died on the first syllables. "Annie Walker here. Was with Eyal. Ferry…" The phone died. She wasn't sure if Mossad would still be monitoring Eyal's old universal voice mail number, but she suspected Rivka would. But whether or not Rivka would be in the mood to share with the CIA was anyone's guess. She rammed the phone into her armpit. The office, amazingly enough, was cool from air conditioning, meaning her interrogator was a person of some rank; her body heat might coax one more minute out of the battery. She pulled it out, powered it up, held her breath as it sought a signal. This time she'd risk Langley – her version of Langley, which meant Auggie. Her fingers flew over the numbers. But the phone display died to black just an instant after she hit the last one. No telling if it got through or not. She heard the click of a receiver being put down too hard in the office outside, pulled out the phone card, and quickly put the items back in the drawer and shut it, locking it with her fingernail, which had stayed long and strong enough to be useful due to Laylah's excellent nail care regime.

The officer returned. He was not bad looking, reminding her slightly of Eyal, though it would be more pleasant if he lost the constant disgusted grimace he showed to her, which she now understood. He wasn't thinking she could be a spy; he believed she was a terrorist. And he was growing impatient.


	21. Proof of Life

I.

Three weeks had passed. Eyal was alone in Red's tent – which was now, for all intents and purposes, his own. Time was not healing him, nor had he expected it would, but the time since "that day" seemed both short and long at the same time. At moments he could hardly remember her, as if it had been years, decades ago, wondering what color her hair was, and her eyes … then for a moment he would think she was just now over in the women's tent about to come to him and then the hard fact of her death would hit him like a flaming black rock from the sky, like the images in his dreams. He would see a woman moving near him and be certain it was her and gasp out her name only to realize it was Hejira he was seeing – and naming – as Annie. Or, once, with an inner confusion he could not understand, he'd called out "Sarah!" instead.

He only found release in battle, in those moments of focused rage when he could let the killer inside of him have free rein over him. Fortunately there had been plenty of those moments. He'd made sure of it. But these were not the people who had killed Annie, as much as he wanted to make them one and the same. To reach them, in a way big enough to make them hurt, make them _realize_ what they had done - he needed help. Help, of this exact kind, was within easy reach.

Laylah, good Laylah, who did not seem to mind his crying out another woman's name while she was in his arms - had gathered up the scraps of printed paper that had been blowing around as they had moved camp after the disaster, believing them sacred writings from the Koran which would need proper disposal by him. The large scrap of thin paper in his hand looked like it was a remnant of the dictionary Annie had pressed onto Red to save his life; if he looked close, at the torn edge, there was still a trace of blood. That was appropriate, as was the connection with Annie, active and benevolent in her last moments on the face of the earth. As for ink, well, there again, blood was not inappropriate at all. He knew he could dare not speak, even in areas others believed would be perfectly private, perfectly safe. So he smoothed out the paper – fortunately, it was from one of the partially blank pages in the front, so there was room, decided what he would give over, cut himself using the tip of a metal skewer left on a platter, and began to write. Despite the awkward writing implement – he didn't want to go tent to tent asking for a pen, he had long ago determined that within their camp there were spies of all kinds - he kept the lettering small and precise, easily legible. There was so much to include.

II.

Annie was back in the interrogation room again.

Apparently his superiors wanted nothing to do with her, and this man was smart enough to fear that someone or something might be coming to retrieve her.

"You, you are a passenger on the ferry. The only person not from this coast, the only unusual thing. The ferry, which has served this coast for thirty-three years perfectly normally, blows up – the other unusual thing. I add it up. One unusual thing leads to another unusual thing. "

"And a poorly-maintained ferry blows up. I just barely made it to shore. "

"A survivor said that you were one of the first to leap from the boat, and one of the first to reach shore."

"I'm intelligent enough to leave a sinking ship, that makes me a terrorist? That ship smelled like it was almost on fire at the dock. I should never have gotten on it in the first place!" The officer grew irate at the insult to their ferry, serving this coast for thirty-three years. Without maintenance for twenty-nine of them, Annie thought archly.

"You should know that I hate you twice," he said to her. "First, for being from the West where you have anything and everything and don't value any of it. And second, to come to my country in the thrall of the terrorists and try to destroy what little we have here."

"I have not come to destroy anything. I'm a journalist, I'm doing a story on…"

He looked at her tiredly, went to the door, yelled to his assistant. A few minutes later there was a knock. The assistant entered, holding by the back of his robes the man who had guided her to the coast. He was expressionless and had obviously been badly beaten.

"Do you know this man?"

"He's the man who guided me to the coast." There was no avoiding that – clearly they knew their connection.

He spoke to the man, who answered softly. A punch in the stomach increased the volume. 'She told me she was a a health worker!"

"Thank you." The officer dismissed his assistant and her guide, and looked at her triumphantly.

"So, "Health Worker"?"

"That's what I told him. I say things like that all the time, to get people to open up to me about their lives, to get the story. People can have odd feelings about journalists."

"For your magazine. What was it again?"

"L'entrée. We're based in Toronto." She answered calmly. He unlocked the desk drawer and pulled out his cell phone. She was relieved she had removed the card, to protect her dialed numbers, but this worked, too. He couldn't get it to power up but he didn't connect that to her, fortunately. He thrust it back into the drawer and locked it up again.

"I do not believe you. I do not believe this magazine exists or that you are a journalist or a health worker. You are a member of a terrorist group operating in this area. One which, separate from your blowing up a ferry, just destroyed an outpost three days ago. Do you recognize anyone in this photo?" he demanded, putting a black and white print out on the table in front of her. The men in the photo were just coming out of cover, bristling with guns, and the man in front was clearly Eyal, sunglasses not withstanding. She made her eyes rove over the photo, but not before she could see he looked dangerously thin and unkempt. Anyone else in the photo she could see, she could recognize, so hopefully her recognition of him was not obvious. "No. But that's a great, dramatic photo. Do you think I would be able to use this?" He snatched it back from her. She sat there looking at him, mindful of her own breathing, as a calming technique useful in withstanding interrogation. Except her breath rhythm, in her own mind, was inhale…Eyal…is exhale… alive,, inhale…Eyal…is exhale …alive. She hadn't let herself confront her own doubt on that point before now, she realized. She really had thought it was likely the camp had been the second target.

"No. But how about this one?" He shoved another printout across at her. This one was from months ago, taken on a cell phone, at the oasis where they had spent a single night. Someone there had captured an image of her as Laylah was washing her hair. Beyond them, in the distance, were some of the men.

"I'd love to use this one, actually, since I have none of my own photos."

"Those men," he said, stabbing the photo with his finger, "Are known terrorists."

"Those people standing fifty yards away? Maybe they are, but I was just getting my hair washed by the women. Everyone takes pictures of my hair here, and I make use of that – it's a conversation starter."

"A conversation starter. "

"Yes."

"Well, today, it is a conversation ender. I will talk again of this later. You will reconsider," he said, rising. Annie got up out of the chair.

"There's nothing to reconsider!"

"Oh? Really?" He smiled at her, showing bright even teeth, but his eyes were not smiling. "In what, two months? Yes, I think so. I had a wife. I had a pregnant wife once. She was about as far along as you. " He did not share more of that story, but Annie felt pity for him. Pity which she could ill afford to spare. "In a few weeks, you will decide you will not want to have your baby inside this jail. You will decide to talk. Maybe even before then. " He reached out to tap her belly lightly with the heel of his hand, a horrible violation if she were a veiled woman, and an all too clear threat now that she was not. She said nothing as his assistant came forward and put her back into the cell with a handful of other unclaimed women left over from the disaster, waiting for male guardians to come and take them away.


	22. Betrayal

Once again he was in the same room with the sheik. It seemed to be his venue for life-and even world-changing words to be spoken. The sheik's eyes were kindly. "I am very grateful, of course, that you have come to speak to me. But first, my very deepest condolences on the loss of your wife."

"Thank you," he responded quietly.

"At least," the sheik went on, and Eyal fervently wished he would drop it now, this was hard enough as it was. And once again in his life, while he desired it above anything - he was afraid that revenge, no matter how thorough, how complete, how powerful – somehow fell short of matching or erasing the devastation that required the revenge in the first place. He must be softening to even think that; he'd have to harden his heart to continue, to draw out the carefully-written paper he had prepared with its chosen facts, figures, and places, and press it into the hands of the man across from him. If he had a heart left to harden; his chest felt empty, and he imagined his heart had fallen apart like a dying rose, each petal of it flying to … this was morbid. Each petal flying to be with a fragment of her.

The sheik had continued talking, Eyal realized, and he had completely missed what he was saying. "Faisal?" he was asking.

"I'm sorry. I was …"

"It is natural. I was just saying I could see the change in you. You have the fire in your eyes, now. This is a good thing. The anger gives us strength in the struggle." But Eyal was aware that the man, previously impressed with Eyal's cool capabilities, his abilities as an assassin, a spy, was also reassessing him. His new vengefulness might be more of a liability, whatever he was saying. He could not see – could not know – that for the first time Eyal was in front of him, free of deception, what he had claimed to be now utterly real.

"I think I may owe you an apology," the sheikh was saying.

"An apology? You owe me no such thing."

"Perhaps. But maybe I was not so helpful when she was discovered. Perhaps I gave you the impression that - that she might not be safe in our hands, that you had no choice but to bring her to your side, in circumstances that might be difficult or dangerous for her. But I would have been happy to arrange her treatment, to send her back to her home country when ready, arrange for some support. I was not clear. I thought initially she was a problem you wanted to be rid of, and those were the only options I offered. I was surprised when you wanted her to join you. So yes, I think I do owe you an apology."

For a moment, Eyal felt enraged, something he was not at all sure he was keeping from his face. Yes, I thought you'd kill her or let her die, he wanted to shout into the sheikh's calm face, looking placid and professorial behind thin gold-rimmed glasses. But I should have been more mindful of my own people, Eyal told himself, forcing himself to calm, at least on the surface. _They_ were the real threat. As I should have well known given what I have been called upon to do in their name without question, many many times. He made himself review the faces, at least the ones he could remember, that he had seen clearly. Once or twice his superiors had even admitted to a mistake, but comforted him, telling him it was not his fault. True enough, but it had been his hands, his gun, his will, his soul. And because of them, that soul - which seemed to have taken up residence in that golden-haired girl, his Annie, s dead.

"But I think this new loss has made you even more truly one of us, " the sheik continued. Eyal couldn't concentrate on his words, not when his own thoughts were so much louder.

The real threat. Weren't they? The helos were Israeli. There was no doubt about that - unless they were possibly Saudi – like the man in front of him, a renegade from a turbulent branch of the family but no different. He was a billionaire – a copter like that could have found its way into his hands if he had wanted it to. Could he be sure? Could he be absolutely sure that that copter …. He had not gone as close as he could have. Nor had he returned to look at the bodies after the smoke and flames had died down, if anything of them remained. Out of weakness, wanting to nurse his rage, his passion for revenge, because that was the only thing – the only emotion – that could for a moment dull the world-ending sense of loss he was experiencing. The wild dark beast he knew lurked inside of him - that he kept chained and tame at least some of the time till now - didn't want anything to take away from his lust for revenge.

In truth, he had not wanted to see a half-melted Star of David around one of the occupant's necks.

But he could see that all too clearly right now, in his mind. His heartbeat accerlated, and he felt a rush of red behind his eyes.

_What was he doing here?_

He had exacted vengeance for his sister's death. Annie was surely owed no less, he thought, briefly defiant to his own new line of thinking – and that thought was also insane. She'd tried to talk him out of his vengeance for his sister and had even physically tried to stop him. How could he translate that into a justification for avenging her on a grand scale? And on innocents? He could only imagine how she would greet him in the afterlife after that – the well-landed blow on his chin he'd received from her once already would be nothing compared to her fury then.

Without being sensate enough to even realize it before now, he had broken, shattered into smouldering pieces. That was the fire the sheikh was noting – and that the sheikh, the truest of fanatical madmen, was worrying about. The fires of madness. He shifted uneasily in his seat, nervous, not like him, wanting to make sure that that paper was still in its place, that it had not fallen unnoticed on the floor, that it was not already being scrutinized, that his ultimate betrayal of everything he believed in and valued and loved – now that Annie was no longer, choking at the thought - was not already unfolding.

The sheik was tapping into his laptop. "As I was saying, normally I would not show a man in your situation something like this. But I think it may be more of comfort than pain. Your wife died a noble death. Indeed, a martyr's death, even, perhaps, an example for others someday," he slipped in, hoping Eyal would be open to those possibilities once he saw it. "It was a great blessing that you were brought together as you were, that you could teach her the true faith. If Allah wills it, and I am sure he may, I am confident you will be together again in Paradise." In paradise. Eyal made an involuntary brief derisive snort which he immediately tried to disguise as a kind of choked emotional response. Paradise would need some amendments for it to match that word for Annie. Unless being with him would be enough. Yeah, right. What a fool he had been. His sole purpose on earth should have been to protect her and get her to true safety, no matter the consequences, one precious life against theoretical millions. Now – _now_! He could think of half a dozen ways that might have worked to get her out of the desert and into friendly hands, and some of them might not even have compromised what he was dispatched to be doing. But what was this? The sheik turned around his laptop. "We were able to salvage this from the wreckage." It was the helicopter surveillance camera video. He could see the territory around the camp, then the camp itself came into view, and then, his heart leapt – it must still exist then – as Annie emerged from their tent as other fleeing women pushed past her into its false shelter, unveiled, looking up at the sky.

"Did she always go about unveiled like that?" the sheik asked.

"Of course not. She must have heard the helicopters and run out…" he said, immediately defensive of her. She looked heartbreakingly beautiful, the wind catching in her golden hair, longer now than he had ever seen it before in their days of espionage, blowing at her diaphanous clothes, things she would be wearing inside to please him, the rounding to her belly enclosing their child, gorgeous. And she was deliberately putting herself out there in clear view, of course. _She thought it was rescue_. From the captivity he was imposing on her. The helicopter camera was off her for a moment as they made a maneuver and the other copter apparently began firing. The next images were hard to follow, sometimes showing a glimpse of Annie, as often not. He saw Red start to mount a defense, be shot down, saw a surviving boy with Laylah dragging Red toward his tent, then Annie helping, her expression angry and yet focused. She disappeared. The helicopters maneuvered. By chance he saw the flash of a blade catching the sun as a slit was made in the tent from the inside and the muzzle of a stinger launcher rammed through, just enough of Annie visible that there was no doubt who was firing it. From the right of the frame came massive hot smoke, obscuring things, and then the flash and that was it.

For a moment Eyal sat there, stunned, entranced by seeing her. She was even more beautiful than he remembered, and that meant his anger and pain were already damaging his memory of her or blocking her spirit from remaining with him in that small way. His Neshamah! The Hebrew word rang through his brain and seemed to resonate against the inside of his skull, not finding a way out, ringing him like a bell.

"Could you…" He swallowed and blinked. The sheikh understood him and played it again.

Eyal watched it all again in silence, his stomach clutching as he tried to burn her image into his mind. But he was distracted. What was it? Something was wrong. Then he realized; the sheikh didn't understand the layout of the camp. The hot black smoke at the end had to be coming from their tent and the vehicles that had been parked just beyond it. That was what was burned into an indecipherable mass. That was where he assumed Annie had been. But she wouldn't have been dumb enough to be hiding in their tent. That would be the last place she'd be. And she had just been in Red's tent firing a missile. No one had kept close track of her - Laylah had been knocked unconscious by one of the detonations, Red had scarcely been alive by the time they got to him, beyond speech, the others, mostly women and children, had been foolishly huddling in the other tents, blind to the action, or had more wisely run out of the camp, scattering.

"Once more?" he asked.

"As much as you like. I'll make a copy for you as well," the sheik said, kindly.

This time, it was Eyal the operative who analyzed the footage, verifying what he was seeing, how it fit with the layout of the camp, what he knew. And Annie was no martyr. She was not dead, he was certain of it. And if she was not dead – if they had come close but not killed her – then this insanity, his desire for utter revenge against those who had targeted her – _whoever_ that was – was just that, madness. He was still infuriated – that any need could be ranked above _her_ life, that anyone could target _her_ – but that was something for another day and, even deeper, a reconsideration of the validity of the lives they had both chosen to lead.

But she had just saved his life again.

No, he thought, becoming aware of his own heart beating steadily for the first time in days, feeling the breath being drawn into his lungs, deep enough to nourish him again, this time, she had saved his soul.

In the bathroom, where he had rushed feigning nausea after the last viewing of the video, he finished consuming the paper he had prepared and looked at what was left of himself in the mirror. No wonder the sheikh had asked to see him after the bloody battles he had been staging. Reports from the field must have been interesting. Annie would not be pleased at his appearance – he'd let his beard grow out, giving a wild fringe to his face, his face was gaunt, and his eyes looked like windows to hell, every inch the jihadi, he thought. He'd have to take himself in hand very carefully, if he was even still capable of doing that. He'd have to be! She still lived! He felt his spirit rise and then drop again, unsure if he'd ever see her again, or if she would ever want him anywhere near her again. But he bent his head under the faucet and made himself drink deeply, making sure the paper pulp was well down his throat, washing down his words of betrayal and death. Just in time.


	23. Return

The voice was loud and urgent, waking the women dozing in the cell.

"You! You get out of here.' Annie did not need to be asked twice. She shouldered her way through the other women waiting for release. With a jerk of his head, the officer indicated the direction she should go. They didn't make as much of a fuss about complete covering here, but one of the other women in a gesture of sympathy had split her own headscarf in two, and the rough-edged fragment was perched on Annie's head. She wondered what she was going to confront now, which ploy had somehow led to her release, or if one of the two calls had landed better than she thought. So she was genuinely surprised – and flooded with other emotions she could not name fast enough to monitor – to see Eyal, not in his desert garb but in desert camouflage, backed up by several men she recognized from the camp, holding out to her a small pile of garments. It would not do for him to embrace her, or vice versa, and she wasn't sure she wanted to, unnerved by this sudden change in her fortunes; she took the clothes, remembering another moment similar to this, in Russia. He was wearing dark glasses – they all were – and his face was unreadable. "In there," the policeman told her, and she slipped into a closet to pull on the new items; they were good quality, nice, reassuring her that he was not irate at her for running away, but who knew? There was no scenario that could have her refusing to go with him – for one thing, he and the men with him easily outgunned the few policemen manning the outpost.

She reentered the room, suddenly utterly anonymous again, hating the feeling. For weeks she had been her own person again, even if without freedom for part of that time.

Eyal, with a sudden cold casualness that was terrifying to see, grasped the policeman's head in a lock and pressed the muzzle of a gun against his head. "Do you have any complaint of his care for you? Did he threaten you? Touch you? "

She thought of the heel of his hand against her belly. He did too – she could see that shoot across his eyes. There was a new wild mother-spirit in her that for a moment wanted to speak, to say Yes! She suppressed that. "No," she said, steadily. "He treated me respectfully. "

Eyal did not release him. "My wife is very compassionate," he said. "I am not."

"Let him be," she said, quietly.

"Very well." He released the man with a shove, which the officer turned into a lunge at Annie, seizing her around the neck and drawing his own officer's arm was crushing her windpipe. She struggled very slightly, more to inform him of the situation than to protest it. He was oblivious. The arm was bothering her much more than the barrel of the gun against her skull. "Back away or I kill her now!"

"Do you have _any_ idea," Eyal commented, sounding more exasperated than angry, "How many men I have killed saving her life before now? Even just like this?"

"I can't breathe," Annie said, softly, hoping Eyal would not hear and take it as a reason to fire. The pressure lightened slightly, enough, not enough to give her an advantage in breaking away, which she didn't want to do – it was a death sentence for this apparently honest outpost policeman. She didn't want him to die if she could help it, despite his threat to her and her child. His words "I had a wife about that far along" haunted her.

"Has he hurt you before now, neshema?"

She breathed. She felt the officer tense, waiting for what she would say, both of them recalling that threatening hand against her belly. "No." The pressure against her throat lightened up a bit more.

"You took a long time to answer. "

"He has treated me respectfully. There is no reason to kill him."

That elicited some comments from the men with Eyal, who was briefly distracted, and turning back, he looked even more angry. Oh no, she was in close illicit contact with a male. Did they dare to suggest that she had been with him by _choice_? "Let me take the gun," she whispered to the policeman.

"Not a chance!"

"If you do, you'll live. Otherwise, he will take the chance and he will take the shot. He has done so before." She felt a slight tremble in the man's body behind her. Annie slowly began to raise her hand to his, sliding her hand over his, keeping the gun in the same position. "Back up and stay behind me."

"What is this now, Annie?" Eyal sounded thoroughly disgusted. Because she was standing there now, in front of her captor, with the gun in her own hand, pressed to her own head. Eyal had an expression on his face that she once associated with him being about to break into Hebrew swearing, but he stayed quiet.

"Let him go. I don't want him or anyone to die over me."

"It's much too late for that. You should have thought that through before."

"I'm sorry about that. But let him go."

"Annie…"

"Do it." She shifted the gun against her head.

Eyal spoke in rapid Arabic to the group of men with him. The gist was that his crazy pregnant wife was having a moment and because of it, they had to let the policeman live or cause him endless domestic trouble which would distract him from his true mission of jihad. "If he does not incite us, does not attack us before we are gone, we will let him be," he said, in Arabic that was so fluent now it was painful for Annie to hear. "We will tie him up and leave him here. Okay?

"Just leave him here. Alive. Not tied up. " She was sure that once he was in their complete power, he would not survive, even if Eyal had indicated otherwise.

Eyal stared at her, looked at the policeman behind her. "Very well," he said, with ominous quietness. His disagreement was obvious. "You come to me now," he said to her, and Annie lifted the barrel from against her skull and began to move toward him. At the same instant, the policeman grabbed her arm, struggled for the pistol, and Eyal shot him. Annie dropped to her knees, her new garments spattered with blood. The man was dead before he hit the ground. Saying nothing, Eyal took her by the arm and pulled her up, turned on his heel and dragged her along by the hand, the other men fanning out around them. Outside were several vehicles and a few more men. Eyal slid into the driver's seat of one SUV and she got into the passenger's side. One of the other men started to get in the back but Eyal waved him off. They drove off in silence. She had to say something, if only to gauge his mood – if bad enough, maybe she could throw herself out of the car as an alternative – not that it sounded like much of one. "Thank you for the clothes."

Eyal nodded. "I knew you'd need them," he said, dispassionately, and from his pocket he drew out a piece of black fabric and dropped it on the seat between them. "I found that in the smoldering wreckage of our tent," he said.

She picked it up. It was from her outer covering garment.

"Next to a woman's body," he added.

"Oh Eyal." He looked over at her, then pulled off his sunglasses and looked at her again. Around his eyes were circles so dark that they gave him the look of a Greek Byzantine icon. He'd just shaved – there was a line of blood along his cheek, which might mean his hands were too shaky to handle the blade. She could not read his energy other than to be reasonably sure there was no threat to _her_ in it, none at all. "I've had a rough time of it since I saw you last."

"Have you _slept_ since then?"

"Not much. You want to drive?"

That was the last thing she expected to be asked. "Heck, yes." He pulled over. The other vehicles drew aside as well. It was obvious that he could do exactly as he pleased and the men knew it; his status must have only increased in her absence. He got out; she slid across the seat as he got in the other side. "Is this permitted?" she asked, hitting the gas and pulling out.

"I don't really give a fuck." She was startled – she realized she'd never heard him use profanity before, at least not in front of her. "Besides, since that day at the camp, you are being held up as a heroic example of Muslim womanhood. Shooting down Israelis. Saving Red's life by pressing the Koran against his wounds. And now, your miraculous escape and survival . Not to mention the honor you have brought to me."

"It was the dictionary, actually. It was heaviest."

"Facts don't matter now in the story." She drove on, pretending to be concentrating on the road.

"They were Israeli?" she asked, quietly, wondering what he would say.

He didn't answer for a long moment. "That's unclear," he said at last. "But most believe that was the origin."

They were trying to kill me, she told herself. Killing them was no different than the group of rogue Mossad agents who were after them in Zurich. Right? What was she expected to do, stand there and die?

"Is that what _you_ think?"

"They could have been Saudi. " Was he saying that because he thought she would be less upset than knowing she had killed Israelis? And if that was the case, if he was being – comforting?to her? To himself? on this point, did that mean that he also would prefer she had not brought down a helicopter filled with his countrymen – former or otherwise?

"Ok." All right, this is different, she thought. "Um I don't know where I'm going …"

"It's not like there are a lot of exits between here and our destination," he said. "Roads are much simpler in trackless wastelands." Did she imagine he was sounding just a little bit sick of trackless wastelands?

"And where is our ultimate destination?"

"I don't know that, Annie. I only know that it seems to be our destiny – our kismet – to arrive there together. " He was quiet for a moment. They both stared ahead at the road. "You run away from me and you could only book passage on an exploding ferry?"

"That did seem like a bad piece of luck. Or the - " she decided to throw this out as a test – "Will of Allah?" He did not answer but made a gesture, unreadable, with his hand; it was annoyingly vague – it could have been a graceful, prayerful move, in which case he was agreeing – or it could be seen as too rapid, dismissive, a visual "Whatever!" and thus somewhat blasphemous.

"How's the pregnancy?" he asked abruptly.

"Oh, the baby seems to be hanging on tight. Falls from camels, late night swims, bad food, unsanitary conditions – boy or girl, he or she should fit right into our 'active lifestyle' with no problems."

He laughed at that, maybe a little too vigorously. She watched him out of the corner of her eye.

"Are you okay?"

He looked at her, plainly, apparently not trying to hide or whitewash anything. "I haven't been. I've been very, very far from "okay". "

There was a ferocious horning from behind and the middle vehicle pulled up alongside them, then ahead of them. "Turn coming up. Follow them."

Annie did so. They were off the road now, and she was glad to have the other vehicle to follow over the hard crust of a limestone outcropping bordered on either side with sand. "And now? How are you now?"

"Now?" His lips, which she noticed were cracked and dry – had he even been drinking enough water? "Sitting next to you? Better." He paused as she looked over at him. "Yes, this is me _better_," he insisted, responding to the doubt in her eyes, for a moment sounding a bit more normal, even with a touch of his humor. She felt herself relax a little.

"I'm really glad I didn't see the worse, then."

"If you'd stayed around to show me you hadn't been blown to bits, there wouldn't have been the worse. Leave a message next time."

"Sorry. With what exactly? I can't embroider that fast. And I thought people saw me go … Laylah? Didn't she tell you?"

"The sequence was unclear. Red was near dead when I got there – he is recovering – but had no memory of the details. Laylah was knocked unconscious for a time– she's fine now, full of ideas for things to cook for your return - but no one could tell me exactly when or where you were last seen, when our tent was immolated . And then I found that." He poked at the cloth.

"Some other women ran into our tent for shelter when the copters came."

"And you ran out to see if they were here to save you from me."

"That wasn't exactly how it ran through my head, but yes. For the baby. For me. To get out of the desert. To get home."

"Home," he repeated. "For weeks I thought you were dead in the attack. Then I learned otherwise but could not find you. Then our path intersected with a nomad group and I learned you had at least made it to an oasis. I searched for you but then it seemed likely the desert had gotten you."

"So you thought you lost me twice."

"I thought I was losing you and finding you and losing you every minute of every hour of every day." She reached for his hand, squeezed it. He responded far more apathetically than she expected. Was he actually ill? He looked feverish – or was that moistness in his eyes – must be fever. Fever she could stand. She wasn't sure if she should say what she was about to say, but went ahead.

"That's how every day has been for me from the time I arrived in the camp. I think I know you, and then I think I don't and then I think I do."

Now he gripped her hand with full force, halting just short of it being painful. But halting. She looked at him and saw him staring at her with burning eyes. "You know me, Neshema." he said. "Nothing else in the universe might be real, but _you know me_."

**Author's Note: Stayed with me on this one this long? Please review - would love to hear from some new voices (and oh, how I appreciate those who keep reviewing! Thank you so much!)**


	24. Transformation

It was not their tent – things were different, but Laylah had obviously been doing her best to care for him. She greeted Annie with what seemed t o be genuine joy, and perhaps pride in Eyal for having found her and brought her back. Laylah, departing quickly, looked back as Eyal moved to embrace Annie; Annie by chance saw the look of such pain and sorrow on her face, she knew that this happy reunion, or so it seemed on the surface, was hurting the other woman who must have enjoyed having him to herself. At that moment, Annie knew the depth of Laylah's love for him, and it made her both a bit fearful and sad.

They did not make love, but lay together on the bedding . His body was thinner than when she had left, not just leaner, but unnourished; her hands found scuffs and bruises but at least no new bullet or knife wounds. His touch of her was different, she realized, and that was not necessarily a bad change. He seemed to be gripping her more decisively, more firmly, and she realized that in all the previous months, there had been something withheld or his state of mind had kept him from really, fully embracing her, _as him_, even in their more beautiful intimate moments. But now there was no doubt that he was fully touching her, with all that he was; she fell asleep clasped tightly to his chest. Hours later, she disentangled herself, and he gave no sign of noticing. She watched over him asleep for a time, then went to see Laylah. She seemed welcoming but Annie could tell that she had been crying. Annie touched her moist cheek, and Laylah forced a smile and raised her eyebrows as if to say, oh, I don't know why I am crying.

"You are not so glad to see me back, I think."

"No, no, it is wonderful! Of course, I am glad!"

"To share him with me again?" Annie asked, quietly. The expression melted from Laylah's face. Her large expressive eyes seemed to hold more than her share of sorrow.

"He loves you very very much," she said. "Me,okay, a little. Maybe." She shook her head and a tear flew off into the air. The sight of Laylah, the strong, the helpful, the protective, as she was crying was almost more than Annie could bear, but what could she do? "I'm sorry, but him – I can't help him. I can't save him. Only you. So I am very glad to see you. But…." Abruptly, Annie found Laylah sobbing against her shoulder. She patted her with what comfort she could. Laylah's tears subsided and she pulled back. "And … it's this, I'm sorry, I cry. But …." And now she pulled Annie's hand to her own belly. "I think. Maybe not. But I think so, and I cry now, and I think so because of that, too."

"But Laylah, that's wonderful!" Laylah gave her a sad smile, nodded slowly. "Our children, they can play together," Annie found herself saying, realizing with horror what that would mean. Her continued life in the desert, no escape, no change, for years. Maybe Laylah saw that on her face, because she interrupted Annie's reverie. "We go back now. He should not wake and find you not there. It is bad sometimes when he wakes." But reentering the larger tent, it was obvious he had not noticed her missing. They settled to one side, where Laylah wanted to comb out Annie's hair and do other quiet activities. After some time, Eyal's sleeping form began to shake. Annie looked at Laylah in alarm. "It's okay, okay," Laylah said. "Go, be careful, careful." Annie approached him with caution. He made a noise as if fighting to come back to consciousness. Then suddenly, with an odd gasping sound, he was wide awake, eyes open, his muscles tensed, in a state of high alert. "It's okay, I'm here, it's okay."

"Annie." He looked at her as if he had never seen her before.

"It's okay, " she repeated, stroking his hands. Then he grasped her against his chest.

"You're really…. Here."

"Yes, I am. It's okay." Now he looked half asleep again, dropping back on the pillows, pulling her down with him. "Go back to sleep," she encouraged, thinking it was the best thing for him. She felt the motion of his head nodding agreement.

When he woke again, it was without the spasms and he had slept nearly around the clock. Laylah had told her that he had slept no more than two or three hours a night for weeks. Twenty hours wouldn't repair all of that, but it couldn't hurt, either. She winced inwardly as Laylah brought them something to eat, knowing something of what Laylah's constant service and pleasantness really cost her inside, to see Annie with the man she loved, who could only sleep in Annie's arms, only be soothed by Annie's touch.

For the first few days, she just stayed with him. Laylah, she learned, spent much of her time under the sun flap outside the entrance, standing guard of sorts, apparently determined that he would draw what strength and healing he could from Annie without interruption. Annie alternated between worry over him and despair over her return to the desert camp. But as he began to heal, he seemed to show fewer signs of his old self, the Eyal she knew, the Eyal she loved. One afternoon one of the youths came for him – the men were meeting. Eyal stood up to go, then looked to her. "You are coming with me."

Annie, shocked that she was so well "trained", blurted "You know I can't!" without hesitation. Eyal pulled her up by the hand. She reached back down for the covering garment that she so hated.

"No!" She dropped it.

"Are you sure?"

"Here. Put this on but nothing more than that. I am going to make a man out of you." In contrast to his words, he snatched up a pretty cloth that normally covered a folding wooden table and draped it over her, providing only a fraction of cover. The boy, waiting for Eyal, looked scandalized and kept his eyes staring down at his own feet. Eyal did not let go of her hand, which as far as she knew was another gross violation of propriety. The boy ran ahead, apparently to warn the rest of the group. They burst through the tent flap together and every head was turned toward them in shock. The relative darkness of the interior after the bright sun made it possible for her to choose a spot in the middle distance to stare at rather than look at any of the men directly. Though they of course all knew who she was, Eyal took this moment to introduce her.

"This is my wife, Noor, who successfully singlehandedly defended this camp against an enemy, inflicting great damage and death upon them, and saved the life of one of our leaders not to mention the other women and children. She has proven herself as able a fighter – as able a man - as anyone in this tent. From this time forward, she will attend these meetings with me and you will afford her the same courtesy you do me."

There was silence. Annie's eyes were slowly adjusting to the darkness in the tent, and when the silence was broken she could see it was by one of the eldest men.

"We welcome" – here he used a term roughly equivalent to "his honor" – "Mister Noor to our counsel. Please sit down and make yourself comfortable." There was a vacant area which Eyal guided them into, against the wall of the tent, allowing him to isolate Annie between his own body and a decorated chest, so no one had to feel too imposed upon by her blatant female presence. There was a moment more of silence and she heard a few unintelligible whisperings, then the counsel resumed. The talk was fast and she had to focus to keep up. It took only a few minutes to realize that this was high-level planning, though not very advanced; it seemed to be a brainstorming session. What to attack. Where. What the impact would be, how it would fit with greater goals of seeding dissension and despair in the West, or punishing their own infidels for unfaithfulness. Her husband beside her added some salient points, often brutal ones. His anger at the West seemed scarcely contained and utterly real, even rejuvenated after the attack that had nearly claimed her. After weeks and months of of dealing with what she thought had to be the most unreasonable and violent version of Eyal she could imagine, and then the hopeful interlude from the moment he had retrieved her from jail, the person next to her seemed brand-new to her, determined to elevate her status on the one hand and to vigorously participate in quashing anything she might believe in with the other. Annie focused on her breathing. Whatever this was, it was not the moment or place to attempt to rein in Eyal. Some of the men who were quieter than others were called out by the leader, forced to speak, participate. For the first time since grade school, Annie found herself praying, please don't let them call on me. Attention seemed to be settling on a softer target, some fledgling business-promotion Non-Governmental Organization which had the bad sense to be encouraging impoverished Muslim women to start small businesses. Annie was scrambling to keep up with the rapid-fire Arabic and dialectical variations, but was following the sense of it fairly well, she thought.

She knew her presence there was not welcomed, to say the least; perhaps that was even why the discussion had veered into discussing a target that would involve the deaths of women. It could be in its own bizarre way a testing of her or an attempt to torment her. She continued her mental mantra, don't let them call on me, while trying to memorize whatever details were revealed. Just in case she ever lived long enough to get out.

But the mantra failed. "And what does Mister Noor think on this? What is _your_ opinion?"

She could feel Eyal tense beside her – and considering his degree of tension already, this could not be a good thing. What would they really tolerate from him if whatever she said was not well accepted? Yet she realized this was not the moment to be passive, either – that would thwart the point of being there and if by some chance her presence was part of some larger plan of Eyal's, what good would that do? She had to say something, and within their context, it would have to make some sort of sense and not brand her as weak. She didn't think she'd ever appreciate his "gift" of a book ostensibly teaching her her place in this society, but at that moment, she did. "I am not accustomed to these conversations," she said, beginning gently. "And my knowledge is new, and limited. So if I am wrong, tell me so. But wasn't Khadija a business woman?" She was in for it now. Invoking the name of the Prophet's wife, a wealthy woman who had financed his first efforts to spread the faith. How would they react? Eyal, beside her, she noticed, was literally holding his breath – she finally heard him exhale and breathe again as the conversation bubbled up. Yes, she _was_, but not like that! Or if so, it was before the true tenets of Islam had been fully understood. Or – or – or. The debate swirled on and then, suddenly, they were all on to another topic, another potential place to vent their wrath. She felt Eyal relax beside her and her own breath resumed its natural rhythm, and somewhere, a building filled with females was possibly a little safer. For the time being.

Annie sat through dinner, trying to be attentive to the food – right hand only, from a big communal platter. But she was distracted internally. He had made her complicit, taken her still deeper inside. She had, whether she wanted to or not, contributed to a discussion of terror targets. What she had said had apparently modified the focus but that didn't excuse the fact that she had participated. Was she a traitor by doing so? Had she 'aided and abetted', was she providing 'comfort and support' to the enemy, at least every third night? After joining in the communal meal and lingering into the night, they had finally departed for the relative peacefulness of their own tent. It was not "her" night but Laylah was leaving the area as they arrived. A couple of the lamps were lit, and the last thing they needed – more food and drink – was on one of the low tables and pleasant scents filled the air.

"I have made everything ready for you," she said, to both of them, and grasped Annie's hand, kissing her fingers before doing the same to Eyal, and then sidling away, back toward the women's tent.

"Look at all she's done for us, and it's her night. This isn't right," Annie said, turning to him.

"It's perfectly right," he asserted. "And wise of her. She knew I would not want to be parted from you tonight. I don't want to be parted from you any night, for that matter." He swept her to him, holding her close, returning to that same new pent ferocity, a tightness in his grip as if he wanted to bury her in his own flesh to keep her safe if he could. "If I lost you now," he said, very clearly, too loudly for being so close to her. "You would take all my soul, and all my will, with you. I would be empty, incapable of any action at all. I could not be responsible for what I might do, or not do, if you are not with me. You are life to me and the only reason I can go on. If anything happens to you, it's over. All of it. Over, Neshema!" That word, so long missing, seared through her.

"I'm not going anywhere," she said. But it was unfortunately all too true. She felt the baby shift in her. Soon it _would _be going somewhere –from her body and into the world, this world. "Though I wouldn't mind going home," she added, dangerous, she knew.

"I know, I know." For a moment there was such comfort in his words as he held her she felt as if they had slid back in time, that she would open her eyes and be in the safe house in Austria, or the apartment by the ballet school in Russia, or his place in DC – anywhere but here. He came back to himself. "But this is your home, our home, now. And it will remain that way." His words were dismissive, almost casual, but his grip didn't slacken on her. The baby moved again. They were pressed so close that she felt him react at the movement transmitted from her belly against his torso. "That's the child moving," he confirmed.

"Yes."

"How long?"

"Two months more, I think." Why was he asking? Could he possibly be thinking, I must get us out of here before then? Or just calculating when he should order the sheep he should get in for a celebratory feast?


	25. Perspective

I.

The sheik scrolled through the video one more time. It was amazing what one could miss on initial viewings, but which revealed itself very readily in slo-mo. Images. The Islamic prohibition against images of living beings was well considered, he thought. They caused nothing but trouble – look at Facebook! The ruin of countless young men and women, however convenient for recruiting and other purposes. But they could be useful. He settled on a frame, looking at it. The woman was staring up at the sky. Over a few frames in the sequence she had slightly adjusted herself to face the helicopter windows more directly. As if she were deliberately showing herself to them. He put it in pause, stared at her face. Her expression was intent, but not what he would call fearful. Searching. Looking for something to reassure her. Not glowering at what surely must be the arrival of an enemy. He sped ahead to the chaos, when she was running around, assisting Red - it was true, she had saved his life - who was yelling at her, instructions, something. She disappeared into the tent, the camera was off of her, but very quickly – he timed it on the video editing software timeline, thirty-nine seconds, she had gotten the weapon, presumably loaded it unless Red kept it in that state, unlikely, cut her firing slit, and fired it.

He had no doubt that Faisal would have chosen a remarkable woman for his mate, but _that_ remarkable?

Well, he had planned to check her history in more detail for public relations reasons. He left the frozen frame on the screen and punched a number on his phone.

II.

Rivka, in her office at Mossad headquarters on King Saul Boulevard, also hit replay. The few words played again. "Annie Walker here…" Her colleague stared across the desk at her. "So the CIA is in this mess as well? When we did not even know about it?" Rivka spread out her hands. "You know Lavin. He has always been, shall we say, effective but unpredictable."

"Who else knows about this?"

"You, me, and the operator assigned to monitor Lavin's leftover electronics."

"Sequester that person. There is nothing else?"

"No. Nothing. I will let you know immediately if anything else arises."

"Do so." She watched as her colleague left the room. He had not sworn her personally to greater than usual secrecy, which was fortunate.

III.

"Joan? Got a minute?" Auggie asked at her doorway.

"Sure. What's up?"

"Not sure. Maybe nothing."

"It rarely is…"

"Yeah, especially in this direction. I almost got a phone call recently."

"Almost?"

"Yeah, a ping and no connection. I capture those and periodically check them. This one came in a week ago."

"Just a ping?"

"From a place called Shahback Matti."

"Fill me in."

"Not much to say. It's an area of salt flats on the southeastern coast of the Arabian peninsula. Sparsely populated by people or cell phones." Speaking of phones, Joan's intercom awoke at that moment. Her secretary announced the caller. Auggie raised his eyebrows and since Joan didn't chase him out, felt for the back of the chair in front of her desk.

IV.

The room in the center of a mountain was a place meant for quiet, serious conversation and analysis in an atmosphere of perfect safety. In less serious situations they joked about going _into_ the mountain instead of _up_ the mountain for wisdom. So the vigorous swearing that was flying back and forth among the handful of men seemed out of place. In front of the oldest of them were several bound volumes of what in most cases could be considered old-fashioned computer print outs on continuous paper. "Enough!" The room fell silent. "I do not see it as a betrayal. I have read all this. Every word. Have any of you? Maybe this is for the best. Maybe, given the ambiguity we have seen in the last few weeks, maybe it is even _reassuring_." There was grumbling. Someone called him a romantic. He had been called much worse, and probably would be again before this was over. His was the minority opinion, again, but since he had been right in the last instance, as the sole voice against the attack, he had something to negotiate with. "He has completely exposed himself. To us and, he may believe, - and he still might be right, whatever we think - even to them. Still he has apparently moved forward with what we need. I say we observe. Then we decide. Not before. Do I need to remind you what is at stake here? That only he can give to us? " That settled them. For the moment, he had won the argument. He hoped it would hold. It didn't.

"He has already betrayed us. Bringing her in in the first place. He also knows what is at stake. And still he did it! I don't care if she is a supposed ally or not – that only made the risk greater. He knew this!"

He tried again . "And we knew the man we were sending out to do this for us. A man who has shown that he fits in every way the divine dictate, that when we send a man to spy out the land, he should be a prince among men. We find and persuade and send out such a man and we are surprised when he does not behave ignobly? We are surprised that he reaches out to save someone dear to him? And then we attempt to punish him for it? We should have extracted the woman as soon as she came to our attention and allowed this to go no further."

One of the other men interjected. "If - _If_! we believe that this is not an unusually adept plot by the CIA to infiltrate our operations. This woman was placed on the border, after seeking him out in Israel, and then she very conveniently is calling out for his help? And this plea just happens to find its way to the right places? Come on. The CIA are colluding with the Saudis for reasons of their own, most likely to keep us from taking the action we need to take. Perhaps they think it will interfere with oil field productivity. This woman is not some lost love, she is an experienced operative who has completely seduced him and is clearly pursuing her own ends, and he has fallen for it and taken her right into the heart of it."

"Yes," another voice joined in. "There is evidence – I believe enough – that he has been compromised. Even converted, if you will. At best he has behaved irrationally – what good did beating her do? Hardly a "noble prince", I am sorry. And these recent attacks – needless. They have nothing to do with our operation. We have no choice but to terminate. The risks are too great."

"We have driven a man mad and now we go to shoot him down like a rabid dog?"

"Once rabid, it does not matter how they got that way. We must do what needs to be done."

"Yes, I agree!" he said firmly, to startle them. It worked, a little. "And what needs to be done can only be done by his hand, or we go back to the beginning. Will you go in his place? Or you? Or you? Do you have a man ready who could? Do you?" There was quiet for an instant, then more dissension. Lavin was worth more than the roomful of them, he thought. But that might not be enough to keep him alive; these baying hounds smelled blood.

Possibly, he could assuage them by persuading them to take someone else's blood instead.


	26. Sacrifice

Annie would be the sacrifice.

If he was strong enough.

He smiled.

Because she was smiling straight at him, her bare face standing out like a shining moon among the faces of the other women who, like her, were cooing over the new arrival, a vigorous baby boy who had almost killed his mother coming into the world. Fortunately he'd had his ob-gyn rotation before going into his specialist training, and though he had outraged some male sensibilities intervening when Annie alerted him to the situation, he didn't care. For the time being, the rest would just have to get used to the new nonconformist Islamic Terrorist Power Couple they had become. Annie, understandably enough as her own time drew nearer, was fascinated with the new baby and the entire process of birth, from the women's dances together to the encouchement to the sudden intervention that had been necessary and that she and Laylah had assisted him with, Annie as able in that as she was in everything else. All the women had new henna, though this time he had not been able to add anything to Annie's. Which was a pity, since that might last on her skin for weeks if she took care with it.

The celebration separated into the more usual segregated groups, and in the men's side of it, broke into arguments – had they really been willing to let the woman and child die? Some of them, apparently, though the husband was keeping a bit quiet. Which could mean anything, including a quick deadly attack, on him or on the life of the woman he saved – even perhaps on Annie, who instigated the intervention - if he was inwardly really outraged or the other men incited him to be. But ultimately it settled into a more normal night of celebration of a birth and for the moment, any crisis was averted.

On some sacred list somewhere, he thought, he was one baby's life to the good. But he wondered if that enemy baby's life or that of its mother would count on many lists in Israel. He shook that thought out of his head. Soon, if all went well, as he planned, he would turn his inner attention to such matters once and for all.

Later that night, after settling his duties with Laylah, he had her bring Annie to him, ostensibly so she could then go check on the woman and look for certain signs to tell him; regular follow up visits were out of the question. Annie obliged him – the woman was doing well, on the drip rig that Annie had used when she had arrived in such terrible shape. He gathered her to him and they made their current gentle version of love; she did not lose any passion in pregnancy but he couldn't help but be delicate with her. And that's what he wanted, tonight, something delicate and soft, and she seemed to feel the same.

"You were wonderful, the way you saved her," Annie was murmuring to him, and he couldn't help it, he felt a glow of pride and was especially happy that he could show to her that in this area at least, she was very safe with him, that he could do the same if anything went amiss with her birth though he dearly hoped he would not have to if all unfolded as he planned.

"If you'd said nothing, Noor, she would have died."

"It was the look on Laylah's face. I knew she wanted me to get you but didn't dare say so."

"I am proud of you both, then." He couldn't win. Annie, with her essential sense of fairness, seemed to want to make sure that Laylah was not left out since her return. Annie picked up a pomegranate, slicing it open and holding out a piece to him.

"Are you sure about that?" he asked.

"About this?" She held up the fruit. He shifted and moved closer to her, his dark eyes glittering in the subdued lamplight.

"In Greece, there is an old story. That Persephone was kidnapped by Hades, and taken down into the Underworld. Her mother won her release from Zeus, but only if she had not consumed anything in the world below. But alas, Hades made sure she swallowed a few pomegranate seeds, so she would have to always return to him. So are you sure you want to eat that seed?"

Annie smiled, and leaned toward him. "But you're forgetting one thing. I'm the one offering this to _you_. So the question is, will _you_ eat?" The other question, will you stay with me forever, she left unspoken.

He laughed, grabbing her hand and the crescent of fruit it held, pressing her hand against his mouth so the fruit was against his lips, bursting the garnet-like arils against her palm, sucking the blood-like sweetness. She kissed away stray seeds that escaped his lips and licked away the sticky juice.

They fell asleep entwined, but they were both soon wakeful – the excitement and food and tension – and after repeating that cycle, he thought there was one more thing he'd like to do with her and it would serve his purpose well. They had never gone back to their nighttime rides after that one ended so horribly. He wondered if she would agree to join him wholeheartedly, if she would also want to erase a little more of that between them, be willing to risk being utterly alone with him. And he wanted to see her again in the moonlight, and hold that image of her in his mind and heart.

She agreed readily enough – there was the slightest of hesitations, but who could blame her on that. He made his preparations and called for the horse. He had selected the spot carefully; it was ideal, a long deep and broader than usual wadi cutting through the desert cliffs, a place completely concealed from almost anything except a stray nomad or two. That wouldn't matter. He sighed. So much could go very wrong, and he'd never been much of one for positive thinking; he left that for her, not that he'd provided her with much to be positive about. But at the moment, she seemed content and happy.

"This is better," she agreed, sighing and snuggling back against him for the warmth

They took a branch of the trail that led out of the canyon floor and up the cliffs, onto the broad dry plateau. The disk of the sun was just starting to emerge above the horizon. Annie had seen dawn on the desert many times now but it never failed to amaze her. "Beautiful," he said. She thought of the sunset that had begun their romance in earnest, in Israel, when he was an Israeli. And now they were watching a dawn in Arabia, in some unmapped portion of the Rub al Khali and he claimed to be something else entirely, but the way his skin felt against hers was unchanged. And he was the father of her child. The sun was rising rapidly now, and they could see the terrain much more clearly, but as promised, he kept the horse to a slow walk as the stars faded from the sky and the power of the sun grew, bringing instant heat that would be almost unbearable in an hour.

She did not notice when he let something the size of a small pebble fall, clattering like others that the horse had stirred up. He stopped the horse a few yards away.

"It's good to breathe the first air of the day," he said. "In such a beautiful spot. It inspires very beautiful feelings," he said, moving so that he could kiss her, deeply and fully, stroking her hair and caressing her breasts. "The way the moonlight strikes your eyes is intoxicating, it reflects off the cliffside right here." He paused. "Look at this night, neshema! See how beautiful it is, right here." She looked at him curiously, then, as he hoped, looked around them. This area of the wadi was no different than any other, except it was the closest spot to an easy path up from the camp, which they would take down with the horse now. "I will always remember this spot, and this moment, and this kiss." It didn't take much for him to want to kiss Annie well, but he was aware that this was the time to leave her breathless. She pulled away, looking at him with some alarm."  
"What's the matter?" Her hand went to her belly. His hand folded over hers.

"It's okay, I think, just something – different."

That was not what he'd hoped to inspire in kissing her, but it wasn't a bad way to make this spot memorable, either.

"We should go back now." She nodded against him and they returned by the path he wanted her to know.


	27. Declaration

In the tent, as Annie was preparing to join him cuddling on the carpets, he asked her a favor. "You're feeling all right now?"

"Yes. There was just that one."

"Good. Braxton Hicks contraction most likely. Sometimes a spike in oxytocin levels can bring them on …"

"Um, that's what's raised by kissing and sex, isn't it …"

She was beside him, nuzzling at him a little. Yes, oxytocin could rise from kissing and sex and feelings of love and contentment. He winced over her quickly ascribing it to arousal, not affection for each other. Well, what did he expect of her? Held captive in the desert. By him. He stroked her hair, wishing he could will her into feeling for him the way he felt for her.

This would get him exactly nowhere, and something needed to happen right now if he ever wanted to be back in a world where she might genuinely decide to care for him. He pressed his hands against her to create a little space. "Before we settle in," he said, gently disengaging, "could you do me the favor of going to check on Fatima and the baby? I cannot – it was difficult enough smoothing things over after intervening in the birth. Wandering into their women's tent in the middle of the night is not something I can do. But you can."

Annie was surprised – he could see it run over her face. If there had been a crisis, Laylah would surely have come to get them, and she probably was sleeping in that tent as the celebration ended. But she didn't say anything and slipped out, pulling on a large scarf for the short journey.

Slipping into the other tent, Annie felt a bit unnerved. It seemed like almost every encounter she had with Eyal was with a slightly different man – and this seemed out of character for him. He knew she was startled and a little scared by the contraction – and everything seemed quiet, any crisis tended to magnify itself to the surrounding tents. Unless Fatima had fallen unnoticed into unconsciousness instead of sleep, there would have been a commotion. These women were not stupid about birth and its complications – just prevented, usually, from having the help they needed, and they would be watching over Fatima. Annie had wanted to lie down in his arms and be comforted and fussed over a little by him – and, unfortunately, Braxton Hicks or not, she was also feeling a strong desire for him again. But the health of a woman and baby both of whom might have lost their lives earlier that night was crucial, she told herself. He had sent her off to be responsible in his stead. She picked her way through the sleeping forms of the other women to where Fatima was. One old woman and the tiniest of small lights were by Fatima, who was clearly sleeping soundly. The old woman smiled warmly at Annie – she really had won her place in the camp. It was obvious Fatima and her new son were doing just fine – breathing was regular, her expression was serene and not distressed. Eyal had sedated her after the emergency caesarean, and Annie lifted the coverings to see that area, which was covered. She held her hand near to Fatima – there was no extra heat, no sign of infection. She would be fine until the time when everyone would be awake and tending to her. Annie smiled at the elderly attendant and slipped back outside, eager for his touch. The sight of the new mother and baby was playing on her own physiology, she knew, and maybe that was why she needed so much to be close to him, in physical contact. At the same time she didn't want things to go too far, because "normal" or not, that painful moment of that sudden contraction had been a definite reminder that her own time would not be that far away. She had not yet broached with him the idea of her _going to a hospital to give birth. _They had gotten Red and the others to care – he, along with his wife and Laylah's sister Hejra, who had been mildly injured – had yet to return but Eyal had told her they were doing well. So she knew there had to be a more medical option. Would he be offended that she would prefer a full medical team to him? Actually, she wouldn't mind him doing the job if necessary – though she wasn't sure if she believed in it being a great idea for a husband to be in the delivery room - she just wanted it to happen in a nice bright operating room with equipment and oxygen and an unending supply of good medications. And the last time she had been in a hospital had been for her gunshot wounds to her chest; no one had given her counseling on how a pregnancy might be affected by that, or by the stresses of giving birth.

She slipped back into the tent just as he was shifting around in the covers, making a place for her.

"Mother and baby are doing fine," she announced.

"Excellent. I'm very proud of you, you know, for helping with them earlier, and now."

"I'm taking on lots of new roles recently. First I'm a man, and now, I'm a doctor. Speaking of which," she said, settling down close beside him, "I'm actually becoming very concerned about your blood pressure," she said seriously.

"My blood pressure?" For a moment he was sweetly bewildered, but then noted the look in her eyes.

"Yes. I'm concerned that it may be much too high. We don't have a cuff here , but I think I can estimate it." She enjoyed the gasp as it became obvious just where she was measuring. "Just as I thought. It's very high. My only option is to administer treatment immediately. You try to relax. We'll see if we can bring it down."

"Not sure if this treatment is working exactly the way you want it to, doctor."

"There may be some initial fluctuations upward but give it some time, I'm sure we can relieve it."

"I'm getting alarmed – shouldn't I have an emergency bedside call button or something to press?"

"Absolutely. That's an excellent idea. Here. Why don't you press right here. But you should know that the nurse is very busy and you may have to press it repeatedly to get one to … to …"

"See? That's much blood pressure has completely dropped."

"Indeed. Your treatment was a great success. Though I was starting to worry about the nurse. Seemed like she'd never …. Get here. "

"I told you she was very busy in another direction."

"So you did." She settled in beside him. "This was a very nice gift, Annie. How am I so fortunate?"

"I'd like you to be feeling even more fortunate, but I don't want to risk it. That scared me earlier." He pulled her closer. She brushed hair away from his eyes, looked at him. For a moment he could believe that she loved him, that the energy he thought was emanating from her heart was really meant for him, his truest, most innermost self, as she ran her fingertips over his face, smoothed his eyebrows, played with his earlobes, the small light in the tent sparkling in her eyes. He moved to touch her face. "When I die, I hope you're the face I see, neshema, looking just as you do now," he whispered.

"Don't say such things. It's unlucky."

"Luck has nothing to do with us. It's all kismet, destiny."

"No," she said, and pressed his hand to her heart. "It's so much more than that," and she bent to kiss him and to whisper, one more time, words she had last said to him in Israel. He had disregarded them then, and must put them aside now, but at least this time, she gave him the chance to say them back.


	28. Inquiry

I.

The sheik stared across at the young woman in front of him. She was fully covered, yet somehow, the way she sat, she still projected immodesty. T'is a pity she's a whore, he thought, remembering the title of one of the plays he had studied during his education in England.

"I understand you have recovered from your injuries, Hejra?" he said, forcing his voice to be solicitous. She responded with the equivalent of "Yeah", shifted on her seat, then added, somewhat more graciously. "Thanks for the compensation money."

He made a gesture, indicating there was no need to thank him. Her insolence projected from every inch of her, but worse, he found her physically troubling. What would they ultimately do with her? Who could she really be married off to? She wouldn't be a gift to anyone. It was horrible that they needed such women sometimes. But they did. She toyed with her teacup. Her hands were bare, pale against her dark covering, her nails carefully filed, a bit sharper than they should be. She lifted her cup and sipped it under her facecloth and he found himself annoyingly aware of what her lips might be like against the curved rim of the cup. He concentrated on sipping his own tea. Across the room, on a brocaded couch, sat an ancient couple, both of them deaf as posts, but providing the respectable chaperone services for this meeting. The aged man was lifting his own teacup with shaking hands. The sheik tore his eyes away from the spectacle.

"I invited you here today to ask you about your experiences in camp, with Faisal and Noor. What do you think of her, particularly?'

He watched the shoulders slump, another unnecessary adjustment on her chair, a shrug before she answered. "Very American," she said, with contempt, but he knew that her own like of "foreign" ways had gotten her in trouble again and again. "Could not cook." She raised up her hands and flailed them about. "Oh, I didn't know not to use so much saffron, oh, I've never cooked over a fire before, oh, ouch, I burned myself again… But she's very pretty, soft skin, that gold hair... " She paused as if enjoying visualizing her supposed rival for her husband's affections. "And she can do no wrong in his eyes." The sheik nodded. This did not sound like a description of a woman who was a spy; they tended to be competent all across the board. But look at the one across from him. She was "competent", supposedly, in only one narrow area.

"But he got angry with her to the point of beating her."

She shrugged those dark fabric covered shoulders. "Some people get a kick out of that stuff, you know. Maybe that was it. And he is definitely kind of a control freak, and that only got worse the more used to everything he got."

"Do you know what that beating was about? What was said? Do you think that led to her running away after the attack?"

"She'd disrespected him somehow. They'd been out riding together at night. I listened for them to come back. They both were furious. I don't know what they said when they were alone, but it must have been a huge fight. As for her running away, wives do, don't they?"

The sheik thought carefully. He wanted to interrogate her more deeply yet he could not let her think he suspected either the woman or Faisal of any disloyalty, he needed to confey that he was just asking about their relationship out of an uncle's concern for his nephew settling into his new life – otherwise, her information would be tainted from that moment, she'd select what she thought he wanted to hear, and he might still want to send her back in.

"Do you think he was really in love with her? Before she arrived?"

"Who knows that? But he was in love with her then. After she arrived, he didn't even care that I didn't want to sleep with him. What man would let me get away with that? I let Laylah have my nights. But I was happy enough to do it. I don't care what he thinks he is now, but to me, he's still a Jew."

This was interesting. The sheikh leaned forward, ready to catch any hint of evidence that Faisal's conversion – doubted by so many, though his recent efficient and effective attacks on various targets had quieted most of those voices – might indeed be false. "Why do you say that?"

"He's what, like forty? From Israel? That long, you'd be one even if you weren't. So he can keep his hands off of _me."_

"So he did not say,or do, anything that made you think his conversion is not genuine?"

"No, he did all his prayers and ablutions and all of that. Even when he would think no one was watching." The sheik was relieved. So far, nothing this irritating girl was telling him gave him any cause to doubt either Faisal or his beloved Noor, and Hejra had no reason to lie.

"Are you willing to go back? To continue to keep an eye on things for me?" he asked, though now, he was not certain it was necessary to have her there.

"Do I have to?" Her distaste for the idea was obvious, and talking with her, he realized he was lucky she'd stuck it out as long as she had in the desert. She was one of the ones needing constant variety, stimulation. She shifted forward on her seat. "Is there nothing um, more useful - I could do – for you – here?" she asked.

Faisal, he thought, was clearly a stronger and better man than he was, he thought, before conquering the physical reaction he was having at her scarcely disguised offer and answering her in the negative.

She sat back, somehow radiating smugness over his rejection, which he was just managing to maintain, not to interject, ah, perhaps there is something you _could_ do for me….. As if she knew she had something else he would desire, and not turn down. "Are those all your questions?" she asked, her voice sounding innocent which put him on his guard. "Your brother, Prince Abdul, he asked me so many more."

"He talked with you?" he asked, blurting it out without weighing his response carefully, knowing he showed her his surprise, perhaps even his fear. Concern. No, fear. His elder brother was on the opposite side of the spectrum, and the greatest doubter of Faisal's legitimacy; he made no secret of the fact that he believed his younger brother had been badly misled,the victim of a con job, no matter what DNA showed.

"I'm sorry, I told him I wouldn't mention it…."

He settled back into his seat, forced himself to take a dignified sip of tea, and wondered what the next part of the conversation would cost him in cash.

II.

Joan stared at the text message on her phone. The message was succinct and inscrutable. "No pplace for cowardly dogs7 in Islam!" it announced. "Allahu9 Aukbar!"

It was ostensibly from a number she once knew by heart as part of a cover. One that belonged a Balkan office goods company.

She hit her intercom. "Auggie, come to my office please." She spent the few moments waiting verifying that yes, that had been the phony corporate number assigned to the company for which , for three ultimately magical days in Paris, she had been the phony Director of Marketing to the equally phony, broodingly handsome CEO.

"Yes Ma'am."

"I need your take on this and then I need you to find out where this originated from." She read the message to Auggie, errors included. She didn't mention the association. Auggie repeated back the text under his breath, and answered without hesitation.

"Eyal Lavin. He's got Annie and he wants us to get her out."

"How are you possibly getting that from this?"

Auggie felt for the chair in front of Joan's desk. "He's referencing an old protocol. When I ran the op to get Annie out of Russia, we communicated through an open website with a lost and found ad for a female collie. "Cowardly" – yellow by another name, and a little close to "collie" just to be sure. Our golden-haired girl. But the extra letters and numbers?"

"I've got those. P79. There was a book of poetry Eyal gave to Annie. Rivka was very interested in it. I'll send you the file. It must reference that, paragraph 79, page 79 – it's awfully risky to send something in the open but he may not have had much choice."

They pored over the document, especially the poem on that page. But nothing. Yet it had to have some discernible meaning.

"Joan, do we have the actual book?"  
"That was returned to Annie. Let me get a team over there to retrieve it."

The physical book was re-examined and re-scanned with special attention to that particular page. Nothing. Auggie was growing frustrated. One more time that his lack of eyesight could be putting Annie at risk.

Or was it? Eyal knew perfectly well that he was blind. And that anything about Annie that found its way to Joan would quickly find its way to him, too.

"Joan, I know this sounds crazy, but I need to see that book. That page. It's meant for me. That's why the last 'error' forms an "Au." There's got to be something there that he thinks I'll pick up."

Joan was used to unusual requests from Auggie, but generally, handing him a printed book to look at was not one of them. She opened the book to the page and pressed it into his hands. He smelled it, felt the paper, ran his fingertips over it lightly. It was old-fashioned, heavy printing, made with metal type pressed into the paper, not a digital printing process; he could, if he concentrated, almost make out some letters or at least tell where the printing began and ended, but he was sure that wasn't it. Then he felt it. The slightest of indentations in the thick, old-fashioned paper. Like the impression of a coin, or another small flat round object.

"Joan, what's this? Does it show up on the scan?"

"On the scan it just looks like an old pale stain."

"Something was pressed there. And if I don't miss my guess, I think it's the outline shape of one of our most common tracking devices. Can you get the guys to enhance this?"

"You betcha," Joan said, taking the book out of Auggie's hands and simultaneously callied in the tech team.


	29. Anticipation

Twelve to thirty-six hours.

That was his best estimate. If his message had been received, and interpreted properly, and if the CIA were inclined to act on the information sent by a traitorous jihadi, it was likely that the small transmitter he'd dropped on the trail would bring intervention within that time frame. Much longer and they would begin to wonder if they would still be in place, though by now, the camp was lighting up a satellite surveillance screen. And who else might intercept that and what else that could bring in on them didn't bear thinking about and he would move camp at the end of that period as a precaution, and try to find another way out for her.

Had he made the specialness of that spot clear enough to Annie? No. But he would. He would make some excuse to Laylah and they'd go there again tonight, take a rug, sleep there. A stealth helo would be the likely transportation sent, especially at the spot he'd selected, at the end of a broad, deep canyon that would provide cover for one - but he couldn't count on that. How he would explain her sudden absence would be another matter, though, since she had run away from him once before, he expected that explanation would hold. He'd tell them that she escaped from him in the night, that he pursued her, couldn't find her … and then launch a massive search for good measure, moving camp as a consequence of that.

She was waking now, looking exceptionally beautiful. He had a passionate desire – to hand her a mug of American coffee and make her an omelet in his kitchen in his old apartment in Washington D.C. Or maybe, better, his place in Israel. No need to be so close to Langley in this fantasy, where she would likely be rushing off to workat CIA headquarters. With Auggie eagerly awaiting her arrival. Auggie. Couldn't she at least find a guy with a name that didn't sound like a glass marble?

This line of thinking was not helping.

She stretched, pushed her hair out of her face – one of the women had threaded a couple of metal beads into a thin braid, and they jangled together as she did so, and looked at him. "Good morning," she cooed, but then her eyes narrowed and he realized he must have revealed something in his expression. "What?"

"Nothing," he told her, and tried to distract her with a welcome-to-the-morning kiss. She responded warmly, but the distraction part didn't work.

"No, not nothing. What's up?'

"You are looking exceptionally beautiful this morning. That's all."

"That's _all_?"

"More than enough, I assure you." He smiled at her and then, blessedly, Laylah slipped into the tent with a question about Fatima.

II.

Annie watched Eyal talk with Laylah and concentrated on her own breathing. The baby seemed very present to her in her belly, shifting. She put her hand on her own belly and swallowed and was determinedly calm.

But she knew she had seen that expression on Eyal's face only once before. In Israel. At the airport. When she was going home.

When he was seeing her off.

He must have known, she thought. Known all this was coming then. But had he known it as a man about to betray his country, who knew he might never see her again? Or as a man about to risk everything he knew and loved for a still unknown reason?


	30. Transitions

Laylah was uncommonly quiet, Annie thought, as she laid out the dinner. They all ate together but obvioiusly Eyal had arranged that this would be another night with her, not Laylah. He acknowledged that silently with a look as if it could not be helped as Laylah slipped from the tent.

"She is not happy."

"No. But I hope you are, that this is not too much of a burden for you, another night with me?"

"Of course not," she said, and slid closer to him. "But you havent' done this before," she said, gently inquiring while she felt her heartbeat pick up as she remembered that odd look from the previous night.

"I'm entitled to some whims, surely. "

"Some," she agreed. "But if you want peace in your tent, you may have to give Laylah her share of attention.

"I guarantee you, I never forget it. What I do forget," he said, more softly, "is the injunction to love you equally. You must know my heart is flawed in your favor. Very much so. Maybe even .. too much so." He stroked her hair. "What's the matter? You're trembling."

"It's nothing," she said, making a grab for another date from a tray.

"Come on then, I thought we would go again on horseback, sleep under the stars at that special place we've found."

At the end of that long wadi. That long wadi which was deep and broad and which she knew, as well as he did, would be a perfect place for a helicopter to stay close to the ground for a long distance, concealed from radar and most curious eyes as it snaked around the occasional palm tree. She looked around the interior of the tent. Suddenly every item in it felt full of portent, meaning, as if she had to memorize them. And Laylah, was that their farewell? Her going disappointed into the night?

"So we will sleep there, the two of us?"

"Yes. Perhaps we'll be lucky and there will be more meteors."

"I'll keep my eyes on the sky, then."

"No. Tonight I want you to keep your eyes on me, only me."

"Maybe we should just stay here, in the tent," she said, suddenly not wanting to go. " I can feel the baby moving, going on horseback, I don't know if I should… _I don't know if I should go_!" He was silent, looking at her for a long time, then reaching for her hand.

"Noor, one more night together outside will harm nothing. The fresh air, the beauty of the night and the open sky, it will only be good for you. You must trust me on this."

Their gazes locked. She could sense and even faintly hear him swallow, hard, as he kept his eyes on hers, his beautiful deep dark eyes, the sharp inverted wings of his eyebrows, his beloved ears and lips and the hard stubborn chin… He broke away first, got to his feet, reached a hand down for her to help her rise. He had her put back on the embroidered velvet vest she had been working on now and again, which he presumably did not know encoded some of her journey. She did not protest when he made her take an extra scarf. He had obviously arranged for the horse to be prepared and rought, because as soon as they were outside, the boy was there with it. Eyal threw a rolled rug and some other fabrics over the back of the horse. Making ones bed and lying in it, Annie thought, the old phrase running through her head. She hadn't exactly made this one for herself, but it was all she could do to keep from crying out, no, Eyal, whatever you have in mind, if it's not the tow of us …. Then for a moment she thought, perhaps it is, but remembered that odd look of parting on his face. That was inescapable.

There were no delays now, no meanderings; he took them to the designated spot, efficiently unrolled the rugs, made them their bed.

But the night passed without incident, other than lying in each other's arms and engaging in their gentlest of love play – neither meteors nor helicopters disturbed the starry sky. In the cool dawn, after his first prayers, she could see he was disturbed. Annie felt a strange flood of relief. It had not worked. She would remain with him, and she surrendered to the thought. This is life, now. She helped him gather up the bedding, wincing a little at the effort. She felt she had to comfort him, and pressed herself to him in an embrace. Would this be repeated, she wondered? How long would Laylah put up with that before she began poisoning the dates?

With great care he helped her seat herself on the horse before scrambling up behind her. Even then, he did not move them off immediately, though it would only be moments before the sun would break over distant dunes. Finally, he too seemed to surrender to the reality and they took a slightly different, longer path back down toward the camp.

So they were behind the camp when the first gunfire broke out and the air erupted with shouting. The voices were screaming in Arabic; and another sound – this was a helicopter, but coming from a different direction, not American, not Israeli, something else. The horse reared but Annie kept her seat; Eyal was the one to fall and with horror, she realized he had been shot in the shoulder. The horse was fighting her as she tried to get back to Eyal. He scrambled to his feet. "Annie, get back to where we were. It's your best chance!"

"I won't leave you!"

"Like hell you won't. Go! Hide yourself there for the day – there's a tracker –find it if you can." He shouted after her. " Nothing comes then get to the coast! Go! I'll be fine!"

Annie struggled to rein in the horse, but it wasn't listening to her , racing away from the chaos, and she had no choice but to let it have its head as it galloped away. There was an explosion behind them and it reared up again, in a complete panic. She couldn't hold on and crashed to the ground, twisting away from the horse at the last instant. It scrambled up and away without her as she got to her feet. The camp was hundreds of yards away now, she couldn't make out what was happening in a conflagration of smoke, dust, and noise. A couple of vehicles were racing in her direction – could it be Eyal? Or some death-dealing attacker? Annie started to run for cover, then was aware that her legs were wet. The shock had jolted the baby; her water had broken, she was going to have this baby now. She shrieked when she was grabbed and carried, struggling, to a jeep that had survived.

"Aug, something's up. " Eric was intermittently monitoring the satellite feed; even though the rescue was still hours away.

"What's happening?"

"All hell is breaking loose. " Auggie hit the intercom for Joan. She arrived in seconds.

"This isn't our guys, it's something else."

"Where is _our_ team?"

"En route, still hours away."

"Did these attackers home in on the tracker?"

"I don't think so, they came from a different direction and don't seem to be interested in that spot. Just bad luck I think."

"Can you make out anything?" she asked Barber.

He pointed at the screen. Debris, dust, smoke – no big bomb blasts, so not a drone strike, but that wasn't going to be much comfort to those killed. Or to them, if Annie or Eyal ended up among them them.


End file.
